


Of Trust Falls and Fallen Men

by firestormrunner



Series: The Lifelong Lessons of Trust [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Volume 7 (RWBY), loved this volume and what it did for the farm boy, now I fear volume 8, oh boy volume 7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firestormrunner/pseuds/firestormrunner
Summary: The one thing Oscar Pine refuses to do is lose faith in the ones around him. He knows James Ironwood is a man left scarred from what he witnessed at Beacon. He knows Ruby Rose is a young girl attempting to do her absolute best with the situation at hand. And Ozpin...Oh Ozpin.At the end of the day though, the hardest thing he might have to accept is that the only one he can truly rely on is himself. At the end of the day, he just needs to trust he can have faith in himself. And he knows Oscar Pine is a young boy who will do whatever it takes to do what is right.(Spiritual successor to A Funny Little Thing Called Trust. Moments from V7C1 through V7C13)
Relationships: James Ironwood & Oscar Pine, James Ironwood & Ozpin, Oscar Pine & Ruby Rose, Ozpin & Oscar Pine
Series: The Lifelong Lessons of Trust [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2003995
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49





	1. As Below...

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, the start of the volume 7 successor to A Funny Little Thing...
> 
> Happy volume 8 release day (at least by EST time)! I wanted to try and get this done before the First drop of volume 8, but life didn't work out that way. The good news is that this is my first Nano project for the month, so hopefully it'll get done before the full drop of volume 8 next week.
> 
> And yes, I am on "Fear" lock down 24/7 until this is done. Perhaps even longer, I have several concerns for this farm boy.

This wasn’t right.

Weiss was the first to point it out as they drifted every closer to Atlas, and that wasn’t a surprise. She grew up in the kingdom, she was better equipped to pick up on any subtle differences—any subtle _wrongness_ —in the kingdom faster than anyone else. But it didn’t take an Atlesian citizen to realize that Atlas’s entire air fleet circling above the City in the Sky meant something was amiss. And it didn’t take an Atlas operative to realize they were on high alert, like they were ready to strike at any given point. Like they were ready to go to _war_.

It had been _way_ too long of a day to finally make it to their destination and be greeted by something like this. He could feel the happy, comfortable energy from just a few moments ago quickly depleting from his friends. Just as quickly, he felt another weight piling onto him after he felt like he could finally set some down for good.

Oscar pushed himself away from the window at the back of the airship and made his way to the front as the ship’s com came to life. A woman’s voice crackled over the radio, welcoming them—the _ship_ —home and instructing them to land at a docking bay. Well, the good news at least what that they weren’t entering Atlas in a perceived stolen airship, right? Cordovin kept true to her word in that regard, so at least they wouldn’t be _immediately_ shot down on sight. Still though, they definitely were not the ship’s original crew, and he couldn’t imagine what would happen if they landed and hopped out of the ship in the middle of Atlas’s fleet hub. That… _probably_ wasn’t going to end well, not when everything was like this. Not when Atlas was on high alert.

This wasn’t right, and a small sense of dread was already building in his mind. He didn’t like the implications of this at all.

“I don’t understand. What’s happening here?” he heard Ruby ask as he approached everyone else. By now, everyone had caught onto the issue at hand and they were all congregating at the front. The nervous energy they had started the day with, the nervous energy they had before they went through with the plan to _steal_ the airship from Argus, was suddenly buzzing through the air once more. _That_ was supposed to be the hard part of the day. Getting out of Argus had _been_ the hard part! Getting to Atlas was supposed to be easy, in comparison. To instead only be met with even more roadblocks? More _problems_? It was disheartening, to say the least.

But such as it always went, it seemed.

“I don’t know,” Qrow muttered an answer to Ruby, and that didn’t fill Oscar with any confidence.

His mind was already whirling with the possibilities of what was happening and what they could do next. But outside of Weiss and her prominent connection to Atlas, Qrow was the only one amongst them who would have any idea about the state of Atlas or what Ironwood could possibly be doing. If even he was taken off guard by this and didn’t have an explanation, then…this was bad. A kingdom ready to go to war with an invisible and publicly unknown enemy was a foreboding greeting, to put it mildly.

Oscar pushed himself away from the window, needing to stop looking at the fleet they continued drifting closer to. General James Ironwood…he had never met the man, but upon gazing at the readied fleet above them, he had the sense he shouldn’t be _completely_ surprised by this.

Well, okay, maybe there _was_ one other person on the ship who would have an idea about the state of Atlas and Ironwood, but he didn’t exactly expect Ozpin to come out and start talking right now. Oscar had attempted on and off for the entire flight to start a conversation with him, but he still hadn’t come out. Not since the near-crash of the airship in Argus. Besides, Oscar told Oz he would be fine waiting for him to return on his own terms and at his own pace, and he meant it. He wasn’t looking to rush Oz back, whatever _this_ was…they would deal with it however they could.

Still though, he was getting a vague sense that this should’ve been Ironwood’s expected response to whatever happened at Beacon, even if he didn’t know the man and even if he wasn’t at Beacon. A subtle resignation was seeping through the cracks that remained around where Ozpin was hiding. Oscar hung his head, he didn’t like the implications of _that_ either.

“But, we _are_ here.” He looked over to Jaune as he continued, “We got the Lamp to Atlas so…I guess we land and get some answers…?”

It came out more as a question than a statement, but Jaune wasn’t necessarily wrong. The only way they’d be able to figure out just what exactly was going on in Atlas would be if they landed and scoped out the conditions of Atlas and Mantle…or if they were able to talk to Ironwood and his men directly. Oscar glanced back out the window. Tow of those three options didn’t exactly seem doable at the moment though.

“I’m not so sure. I’ve never seen our forces deployed so aggressively before,” Weiss cut in.

He watched as she took his place leaning on the pilot’s seat, staring up at the ships like he had done a moment ago. She was contemplative for sure, but if anything, she had to be the most nervous out of all of them, and that didn’t bode well at all. It only further proved that none of this was right.

“If we land in a stolen ship, there’s no way a security team would let us near Ironwood,” Weiss pointed out, which was exactly as he thought. She hesitated for a moment, then added quietly, “They might even take me back to my father.”

They all had already agreed back in Argus _that_ wasn’t going to happen. So, it looked like landing in Atlas or getting to Ironwood directly was out of the question. It was time to revise their plans and start improvising. Funny, hadn’t he implied to Ruby last night this sort of seat-of-the-pants planning was becoming their forte? This hadn’t exactly been what he had in mind, he was still trying to come to terms with how their best bet last night was stealing an Atlas airship from Argus, and had he known what lied beyond getting out of Argus he wouldn’t have said a word.

They would come up with something though, he trusted they could all get that far. That wasn’t what he was worried about.

“So…?” Blake trailed off, her tone mimicking the apprehensive energy everyone had around them. So, if they couldn’t go to Atlas, if they couldn’t immediately go to Ironwood to talk with him…what were their options?

“Winter!” Weiss exclaimed. She looked immediately relieved and seemed rather confident her sister would be able to do something about this. And maybe she _could_. From what he understood, Winter Schnee was essentially Ironwood’s right hand, and having a familial relation that close to the general _could_ be a help.

Oscar didn’t know why his doubt lingered, but it was the new best chance they were going to have until they had more time to put something better together.

“Put some distance between us and the fleet,” Weiss told Maria and then went to the back to try and make a call, presumably to Winter.

“You don’t have to tell me twice!” the old Huntress agreed, and Oscar watched as they dove down and away from the fleet and the City in the Sky towards Mantle.

He wouldn’t deny he felt a budding sense of relief the further away they got from Atlas and its fleet. Of course, the longer they stayed around the fleet, the higher the chances were of them getting caught or for something else to otherwise go wrong. He was pretty sure they all would’ve preferred not getting shot down or captured. But…there was more to it than that. Something personal…the more he glanced at those ships circling around Atlas, the longer he could look at him, the larger his sense of dread grew. It wasn’t just the subtle resignation, the faintest hints at lack of surprise he felt coming from the back of his mind either.

Oscar didn’t want to jump to conclusions, especially before they had even touched down. He wanted to believe there was some sort of explanation. But if he were being honest, deep down he _knew_ what those ships meant, what they _really_ meant, he just didn’t want to believe it.

Not that he found any comfort as they started making their way around the city of Mantle either. He had gone back to the window towards the back of the airship, looking out over the city as they flew above the streets. An altogether different sense of distaste settled next to the receding dread in his stomach. _This isn’t right either._

The number of soldiers and Atlesian Knights was way too high for a place that wasn’t actively at war. The military presence on the streets was way too strong, it was almost— _no_ —it _was_ overbearing. Almost as if on cue of his thought, a recorded message from General Ironwood about the strength and safety of the Kingdom of Atlas started playing on large screens populated all over the city. The timing would’ve been comical if everything else was so…overwhelming. As it was, all the message did for him was make him even _more_ concerned.

The worst part of it though, oddly enough, was that the citizens of Mantle seemed to be going about their business as best they could, almost as if they were used to it by now. Not completely, he saw some soldiers going after a handful of citizens for reasons he couldn’t discern. _If_ there were even reasons at all. And he saw some people harassing soldiers in tow, which didn’t seem like that great of an idea…but he could understand. Aside from those small clusters though, everyone seemed to simply be going about their nights as if this were normal.

Maybe this _was_ normal for them now and, if that was the case…then just how long had this been going on? The thought made him irrevocably sad, because the answer, no matter how long in terms of days or weeks or months, was _too long_. This was no way for anyone to live, under the heavy hand of surveillance guised as “safety.” Nobody should live in fear of an unknown enemy.

Lost in his thoughts, Oscar didn’t hear someone next to him until Nora mumbled out, “This is bad.” He glanced over to see her wide blue eyes staring out at Mantle too, taking it all in. There was a sadness in her gaze that was similar to his own, yet somehow altogether different. He couldn’t quite place it, and it was quickly followed by a flash of anger. He could sympathize.

This wasn’t right.

“Yeah…” he muttered in agreement, “Yeah, it is.” It was all he could say. After one last glance out the window, Oscar tore himself away from the sight of Mantle, forcing his attention to the cold gray of the inside of the airship as he sat back down against the wall. All of this was bad, the unknown situation with the fleet and Atlas, the conditions in Mantle, the fact they couldn’t get to Ironwood, the fact none of them even _knew_ what was going on… _none_ of this was right. It didn’t make sense.

And yet, it did. Despite a forced sense of calmness and acceptance on the surface, the fear lingered just beneath, blanketing everything.

These weren’t the Atlas and Mantle he was expecting. This wasn’t the kingdom that he…knew? That he knew. He had never been to either place before, he’d only seen pictures in books and heard the occasional story, but he _knew_ this wasn’t how they were supposed to be. Oscar didn’t need Ozpin, he didn’t need the past to know this was never the intention.

Atlas was supposed to inspire, nothing was supposed to be a greater symbol of hope and progress and innovation than a floating city in the sky. And Mantle…poor Mantle wasn’t supposed to be so dark under Atlas’s shadow. It wasn’t supposed to be wilting under the weight of security and authority and restrictions. Mantle was supposed to be a stronghold, a testament to the survival and will of humanity even in the face of the most brutal of elements. It was supposed to be diverse and hardy and lively. He knew this…he _knew_ this.

_“What is going on here?”_

He didn’t know what he was asking of Oz, and he wasn’t expecting a response. He still held to the fact he wouldn’t push Oz into coming back, it was just…old habits. He wanted to know what was going on with the kingdom, he needed to know what the explanation was for why the fleet was positioned to strike at any moment and why Mantle looked almost like a warzone. He _needed_ there to be an explanation of grand proportions, because it was unjustifiable otherwise. And…he wanted to know why this burned him so much. There was a little bit of anger, yes, but mostly he just felt sadness, a deep, penetrating grief for the people living like this. Living in fear and, for most of them, not even knowing why.

Because he knew this wasn’t right.

Was Oz seeping through to him that much, affecting how he felt about the situation he saw? It didn’t feel like it, his presence was there but it was still incredibly faint resting in the back of his mind. But if it wasn’t Oz that meant these feelings were his own, and that surprised him more than it would have if it _was_ Oz. It wasn’t like he didn’t have opinions and feelings towards things, given what he did with Jinn and Oz, Oscar knew he could never claim that, but he could admit that he was young and inexperienced. Before now, he had never been off the farm in Mistral. He didn’t think he had the experience, the life lessons, to feel this strongly towards something that was well beyond him.

But he knew, deep in his heart, that this was wrong.

Oscar didn’t dwell too long on it though, he couldn’t as he was pulled from the spiral he could’ve gone down when the radio came to life again with the same woman’s voice and Maria informed them they didn’t have much time to be arguing over what to do. She was right of course, and it was the more pressing issue at hand compared to his…whatever that was. If they didn’t do something at now, the fleet was going to come looking for them. As it was, the fleet probably already _was_ going to come looking for them because the ship wasn’t reporting in at the docking bay it was ordered to go to, but they probably shouldn’t be with the ship when the Atlas military inevitably found it.

“I’m telling you, my sister can take us to Ironwood!” Weiss insisted.

“Uh…Weiss…?”

Again, as if on cue, Blake’s concerned voice was replaced by Winter Schnee’s faintly entering the ship from the outside. Oscar didn’t get up again, he didn’t need to, he knew it was another pre-recorded message going out across Mantle on those screens. It had the exact same tone and point as Ironwood’s did just a few minutes ago, and all it did was confirm Winter wasn’t an option. She wasn’t a good one right now at least, when they were still flying in a stolen airship and ran the risk of running into the military. This was bad, this was all _so bad_.

“No offense Weiss, but I’m not sure if that’s a great idea anymore,” Qrow said. He was trying to be gentle, Oscar figured. No one exactly wanted to say what they were all assuredly thinking to Weiss about her sister. About the situation at a large.

“There’s obviously something _very_ wrong. If we can just _talk_ to her then we—”

“Look, I’m not even sure we should be talking to Ironwood until we know exactly what’s going on with Mantle,” Qrow cut her off before she could get any further, finally saying the one thing that stood looming over them all in the airship.

Oscar felt for Weiss, he did. It was obvious she loved her sister and didn’t want to believe that she could have a role in everything that was going wrong right now. But all the signs were pointing to it, Winter couldn’t be trusted right now. _Ironwood_ couldn’t be trusted right now. Nothing made sense, this wasn’t at all how getting to Atlas was supposed to go. They were supposed to be able to _trust_ Ironwood and his military, but now…Oscar didn’t know what to believe. He glanced at the window, unable to see anything out of it due to the angle he was sitting at, but knowing what was going on just below them. He didn’t know who they could trust in this, none of them did.

_“Why does it always come back to this?”_

It always came back to who to trust. Oscar sighed and ran a hand over his face, exhaustion creeping into his veins again. It always came down to trust, didn’t it? After everything they had been through, discovering the truth about Ozpin, getting to Argus, the emotional turmoil that caused for all of them and that they eventually _overcame_ , they were met again by the _exact_ same problem in a new context. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions though. It was important to be cautious, but he needed more information, they all did before they could truly judge anything. There had to be _some_ kind of explanation for the state of Atlas and Mantle. And though everyone seemed to quietly be fearing the worst, that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

They had all been wrong before. The had all been wrong about Ozpin, he knew that much.

“Luckily, I know someone who can do both!” Maria proclaimed.

Oscar turned back into the argument occurring in front of him. He wasn’t fully sure what that meant since he got lost in his thoughts again and tuned out a bit of the conversation at hand, but as the ship started descending, he figured they had decided to abandon the ship and instead go on foot through Mantle. That was probably for the best. He really didn’t want to find out what the Atlesian military would do to them if they found them with a rogue ship.

Their touchdown into the city of Mantle was quiet, there wasn’t much of anything left to say. They all hopped out of the ship in silence and followed after Maria as she led them out of the back alleys and away from the ship. All Oscar could do as they walked was look around in wide eyed wonder, though not the kind he wished he could’ve had. If he could tell the state of Mantle from the ship, it was only amplified on the ground. The air felt thicker when he was actually walking in it, almost as if he were wading through water instead of walking along the street. The weight of the situation Mantle was in was almost palpable. It was disconcerting, to put it mildly, and the pit of dread was coming back in his stomach again. Even Mistral at its worst, with missing Huntsmen and Huntresses and a headmaster actively working with Salem right under their noses, hadn’t felt as bad as this. It was a wonder Grimm weren’t already flooding the city. But then, everyone in the city was surviving the best they could.

This wasn’t normal, but walking through the streets only made it even more obvious than in the sky that the citizens of Mantle were acclimating to the Atlesian “support” they were receiving. That deep sadness nipped at him again, reminding him no one should have to get used to living in conditions like this. A man they trusted, a man _Oz_ trusted should not be _creating_ a situation like this.

There _had_ to be some sort of explanation. A man Oz trusted would not just do this without good reason, he wanted to believe that, at least.

With each step he took, Oscar could feel his feet growing heavier. Brothers, it had already been way too long of a day to be dealing with something like this. The walk to Maria’s contact was short, but unfortunately too informative for him to take any solace in the physical relief. None of what he gathered about Mantle and its current state was any good or any different from what he suspected in the ship. The Atlesian military presence was overwhelming and the surveillance they were keeping Mantle under was _strong_ , as evidenced by their own run in with it. Yang probably shouldn’t have destroyed the drone that followed after them and took her picture considering keeping a low profile in Mantle meant _not_ destroying Atlesian tech, but he could understand. The paranoia of getting caught, and what that could possibly mean for them after, was already a lingering threat throughout the day in Argus. Now it was only being fueled and intensified by the surprise conditions they found themselves in in the kingdom that was once their destination. The kingdom that should have harbored some sense of safety, not dread.

_“This is what you tried to avoid, isn’t it?”_

As they reached their destination, some non-descript building Maria was leading them into, Oscar hung towards the back of the group, staring behind them at everything they had just seen. An oppressive military presence, a beaten down Mantle, a growing sense of anxiety and concern over the state of the world and a pressing paranoia over just _what_ could warrant a reaction such as this. _“This is everything you never wanted_.” Oscar sighed.

Ozpin had been very careful with the truth and what he told. It had never been malicious, Oscar understood that, and he had realized that a lot of what had held Ozpin back was his own worry over how others would take it and look at him, personally. Oz wanted to protect himself, understandably so. But it wasn’t only just a personal choice.

There were many ways to react to the truth. When Oscar told Team RWBY Jinn’s name and got the whole truth out of the Lamp, he knew and trusted the group enough to know they would overcome whatever it was they were going to find out. He trusted them to do the right thing in the end. It took some bumps along the way, but eventually they did exactly as he trusted. Maybe some of those bumps could have been avoided, but he didn’t regret his decision, not one bit. They were here now and stronger for it, that much he knew.

Some reactions to the truth though were…darker. Sometimes other reactions looked like fear…looked like _this_. The subtle resignation he felt looking out over Mantle, the sad understanding and acceptance of what was going on here was in small part from Ozpin. He knew this was a possible outcome for Ironwood and the Kingdom of Atlas, however much he perhaps hoped it wouldn’t be. And Oscar understood that because he knew, no matter how much he didn’t want to believe it, or admit to it, or acknowledge the swirling chasm of emotions it caused him, some part of him _knew_ this was what fear looked like. And that same part of him _knew_ that while it was an understandable reaction, a sympathetic one even, it wasn’t the _right_ one.

“We need to fix this,” Oscar muttered and turned away, following the others through the door into whatever was beyond it. He didn’t know if he was talking to himself, or Oz, or quietly imploring the group as a whole. Maybe it was all of them. All he knew was that this was no way to live and they had to do _something_ about it.

Hopefully that would be as easy as talking some sense into Ironwood. Maybe it would require a lot more. It didn’t matter, they needed to fix this. _He_ needed to.

Oscar sighed and took his place among everyone else inside the, what appeared to be, medical clinic they had just stepped into. Maria was up greeting the man, presumably the owner, as if he were an old friend. Well, they probably were, it just took the man a moment to remember who she was. He probably saw a lot of people if his office was anything to go off of, and if Maria only stopped in every ten years (which seemed like a ridiculously _long_ time to go without tuning up something as important as prosthetic eyes), then it was understandable he wouldn’t easily recognize her.

While the two talked amongst themselves, he took the time to take a closer look at the space. Piles of paperwork sat on the doctor’s (he was presuming the man was a doctor, anyways) desk, indicating he was probably right about seeing a lot of patients. It made sense, given the fact the man was apparently good at prosthetics. Oscar wasn’t positive, but he could take a guess that there probably weren’t a lot of doctors in Mantle offering that kind of care, even if the conditions may have required it. And he could take a guess not many people in Mantle requiring such care would be able to go up to Atlas to receive it.

His eyes trailed to the walls, some lined with bookshelves housing tons of books, mostly pertaining to medical fields and robotics by the looks of it. That made sense, given how Maria knew him and given the robotic chair he was moving around in. There was also a lightboard with x-rays posted to it. He didn’t know what those meant, or what exactly he was looking at for them, jus that they were x-rays for a bunch of different parts of the body… _hopefully_ coming from multiple different patients. He couldn’t imagine what one person would have to suffer to need _that_ many x-rays taken of different parts of their body.

That aside though, the place felt quite homey. It was nice, especially in comparison to what Mantle was like just outside the door. For how bad the city was out there, it was comfortable in what was essentially a doctor’s office, and that was…reassuring. It eased something in him, at least a little, to know that there were places like this down in Mantle too. Not everything was quite as dismal as they saw outside. And even if he didn’t know the doctor’s name, Oscar could tell just by the office he kept, that he was a kind soul. And that was reassuring too, not everything was lost in Mantle, not everything felt so heavy. It was a nice reminder that pieces of good survived even in the worst of conditions, and really, wasn’t that what he said Mantle was supposed to symbolize anyways?

Humanity’s survival, even in the most brutal of elements. Mantle was struggling but it would endure, this space here was proof of that.

Oscar startled out of his musings and looked to Maria and the doctor when a loud crash sounded next to them. He looked at the ceiling tile now on the floor and chuckled a little at himself, easing his hand off his cane.

“He likes to keep a low profile—” Maria answered to Yang’s question about the conditions the doctor was working under in Mantle. No kidding, but even that seemed to add to the charm in Oscar’s opinion. There was something about a man doing good with what he had and not needing the recognition. “—Something I’ve come to realize none of _you_ know _anything_ about.”

“You can call me Pietro,” the doctor said, introducing himself before anyone could retort.

“Finest _heart,_ too. This pharmacy is just where he volunteers when he’s not building the future of Atlas alongside Ironwood, up in the clouds,” Maria added.

So that’s what she meant when she said she knew someone who could help them with both. If Pietro knew Ironwood, then maybe there _was_ some hope yet that they could get up to Atlas and talk to Ironwood. Or figure out what was going on with Mantle and Atlas. Or both. _If_ the man was willing to help them out that is, but Oscar wasn’t overly concerned with that.

“Oh, it’s stuffy up there,” Pietro waved off the thought of Atlas, “Down here, I get to help the locals _and_ have a little fun. I’m currently working on shoes that make you dance. Wanna try them on?”

Okay, he had a _much_ better feeling about Pietro than any of their other options.

“Yes!” Nora exclaimed next to him. Oscar chuckled again and shook his head, leave it to her enthusiasm to bounce back quickly.

“ _Before_ we get to that,” Yang cut off that train of thought before it could go any further. Beside him, Nora pouted. “We were wondering if you could help us. We came to Atlas hoping to talk to General Ironwood, but um…”

“What exactly has been happening here?” Blake asked, straight to the point. He could feel the mood of the room starting to drop again.

Pietro fell into a coughing fit before explaining, and Oscar grimaced. For as lively as the man seemed, _that_ didn’t seem like a good sign. “Well, the Fall of Beacon a toll on all of us. James was no different. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was he saw there, but it changed him. He’s…”

“He’s scared,” Qrow finished for him.

“Paranoid would be the more appropriate term,” Pietro corrected.

Oscar crossed his arms and shifted uncomfortably, glancing back towards the door and everything that stood behind it. Scared or paranoid, the name of it didn’t really matter…it was obvious what the problem was, Pietro only added slightly more context. Beacon’s fall had left its mark, its weight stretching out well beyond Vale’s borders. Mantle was under Atlas’s shadow, but _Atlas_ …

Atlas was under Beacon’s shadow.

Oscar sighed and shook his head, listening to Pietro as he continued, “Someone completely dismantled Atlas security code, made it their play-thing, and made us look like traitors to some and buffoons to everyone else. Whoever managed to do that is either a genius or one of our own. I fear the answer may be _both_ , and so does the general.”

“Maybe Atlas isn’t as safe as we thought,” Ren sighed.

Maybe it wasn’t, but did that matter now? They had _finally_ made it, despite train crashes, Grimm, one crazy lady with a giant robot, and secrets that could dampen anyone’s will…they were still _here_. At the very, _very_ least they should still see through their reason for coming—securing the Lamp. But Oscar didn’t want to leave it at that. He _wanted_ to help the kingdom. It was obvious the cities needed it. And even without meeting the man, it was obvious _Ironwood_ needed it.

If they still saved Haven despite Lionheart _working_ with Salem, why would they give up on Atlas now?

“After we came all this way, we can’t just leave,” Oscar said, pausing to look at everyone else, “Can we?”

He knew the answer to that question was no, and he knew everyone else knew it too. They came to Atlas to talk to Ironwood and keep the Relic safe, and that’s exactly what they would do. And along the way, they would help the kingdom too, because they’d yet to turn their backs on a place in need. Because _helping_ is what they wanted to do, it was what they chose to do. There was still hope here too, Pietro alone was enough proof of that. No matter what he or anyone else thought of the situation of the kingdom, they _had_ to stay, he knew that.

He knew everyone else would agree.

“How does the council feel about this? Or Winter Schnee?” Weiss asked instead of answering, but he wasn’t too concerned. She wanted information on her sister, which was understandable really. Besides, if there was anyone else in this group who would want to help Atlas no matter what, it was going to be the girl who was born in the kingdom. “What about _her_?”

“Well, the council’s so scared, they’ll agree to whatever he wants. Though, some representatives from Mantle…” Pietro trailed off with a look of recognition, “Wait, you’re…you’re Weiss Schnee!”

Weiss took a nervous step back, half nodding in agreement out of surprise. Yang stepped in for her, “Wait, what was it that you were trying to say about Mantle?”

“You… _painted_ it?” Pietro asked, staring at Yang’s prosthetic arm as if he hadn’t heard anything else she had just said.

 _Wait_ …did Pietro _know_ them? Or Team RWBY at least? That would certainly be a turn of events, if nothing else. He hoped that was a good thing, Pietro seemed like a kind enough man that it _should_ be a good thing.

“Is everything okay?” Ruby asked, taking a step up to stand next to her sister.

“You’re Team RWBY!” Pietro exclaimed, smiling as he did so.

“You _know_ us?!”

“Oh, my girl, I do. I most certainly do,” Pietro nodded at Ruby, his smile growing undeniably fond. Okay, well, at least it was a good thing that he knew them…Team RWBY at least. “And I feel like such a dunce for not recognizing you sooner. My daughter’s told me so much about you.”

He had a daughter? Who knew Team RWBY?

“Your…daughter?” Ruby echoed his thoughts.

Before the doctor could answer, a siren sounded outside that made Oscar jump. A moment later, the sounds of running and screaming could be heard just beyond the door to the pharmacy. They hadn’t been in Mantle long, but that sound was undeniably the alarm for a Grimm invasion. Maybe he had spoken too soon about Grimm not flooding the streets. His eyes wandered to the Lamp on Ruby’s belt, and he winced. Maybe it was to be expected.

“Trouble,” Jaune said, and before he could even finish the word, they were running out of the building.

Oscar stood with the rest of them as they all drew their weapons, looking down the street in preparation as the sounds of gunshots and growling echoed back to them. He took a glance around their surroundings, looking and listening for any other sign for more points of attack. He couldn’t identify any other sounds indicative of more Grimm, but as he looked, he noted that a lot of the walls protecting Mantle, as well as the security systems, looked pretty outdated. Patches were in desperate need of repair. “I guess the city defenses aren’t doing much,” he remarked. Given the state of everything else in Mantle, that wasn’t really a shock.

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me,” Nora agreed.

Oscar watched as one of the Atlesian Knights down the street was thrown across the intersection ahead of them, and three more backed up into their view. One by one, each Knight went down as a Sabyr charged forward and took them out. If that was all there was, this might not be too bad. There was enough to overwhelm three robots, but for a group as large as them, it would probably be fine.

“Well, we didn’t come this far to fail now!” Ruby called out, attracting the Sabyr’s attention as it finished destroying the final Atlesian Knight.

Yang charged forward first against the swarm of incoming Sabyrs, Ren close behind her. Nora, not to be outdone, ran towards Jaune and _launched_ herself off of his shield toward the swarm. Qrow ran ahead as well, and Oscar figured four was a decent number to match the Sabyrs head on. He didn’t feel quite experienced enough to be up there anyways, so he stayed back next to Jaune to help take care of the ones that got past their frontline assault. Jaune took care of two that charged at him and, once sure that he was okay, Oscar turned his attention to Qrow in front of him.

The most experienced Huntsman of the group, Qrow was doing perfectly fine on his own, slaughtering essentially anything that came out him. One of the Sabyrs behind him though turned its attention away from Qrow and towards Oscar. He blew out his breath and tightened his grip on his cane as the Grimm decided _he_ was the easier target than Qrow. The Sabyr charged at him, and he counted down from three in his head, letting it get a little closer before he took off towards it. He counted down from three again before he sprang, leaping up over the charging Sabyr and twisting in the air to smash the end of his cane through the creature’s skull. Oscar landed on his feet with a smile, feeling just a _touch_ of pride as the Sabyr skidded a few feet in front of him before collapsing and dissipating into the air.

That pride was short-lived however when he heard a growl from behind him. He ducked quickly, bringing his cane against his head to protect it, and heard a bullet whiz past his ear. Oscar looked up to watch another Sabyr disappearing above him, and then turned to see Ruby give him a smile and a nod. She swung Crescent Rose behind her, shifting the weapon back into its scythe form, and took off past him. She sliced one more Sabyr in half before using her semblance to go around another one and continue on her spree further ahead.

Oscar, in turn, readied himself against the second Sabyr charging at him that Ruby went around. He didn’t run at this one, instead he planted his feet firmly on the ground and waited, meeting the Sabyr’s claws with his cane when it jumped at him. He grunted and pushed back with all of his might, finally shoving the Grimm back a few feet and freeing his cane from its claws. He turned on his heel when the Sabyr lunged for him again, swinging his cane with every ounce of force he could muster into the Grimm’s side. The Sabyr went clamoring into the building wall, and before it got a chance to get up, he threw himself at it, shoving his cane through its side.

He didn’t let up until the last bit of the Sabyr turned to dust. He blew out a breath and pulled back, looking around the block to see if there was anywhere else he could help. At the moment though, it seemed like the others had it under control. That was probably for the best. Fighting was becoming more second nature to him, but the tired aches creeping into his limbs proved he still had a long way to go. Still, he felt even better now than he did several hours ago with the fight against Cordovin and the Leviathan. It was a…difficult thing to feel proud over given everything else going on and _why_ he was getting better in the first place, but at least he wasn’t as much of a burden as he once had been. He could actually hold his own and help when these situations arose now, and that was an improvement at least. He could feel a little pride at the fact he was finally getting better at something he had been practicing.

Instead of moving forward though, he waited and watched, content to analyze the fight until he was needed elsewhere. He watched as Weiss sliced through one Sabyr and then stopped four others coming down the alley by levitating them with her glyphs. Ren ran in to finish them off with quick precision. On his other side, Yang finished off one and was saved by Blake shooting the second one going after her. Oscar thought they were in the clear until another Sabyr came running up behind Blake. She was going to turn just a moment too slow, and Yang wasn’t going to have a chance to get there. He wasn’t even sure what _he_ could do given how far he was, but he grabbed at his cane and prepared to start running, only to be stopped by a green beam slicing the Grimm in half.

Everything seemed to stop after that, everyone turning to stare at the sky from where the beam had come from. Faintly, he could make out a figure whizzing about in the sky, firing green beam after green beam at the remaining Sabyrs around them. She didn’t stop until there were no Grimm left and the red lights of the city alarm turned off. All he could do was watch in a bit of wonder with the rest of them as a young girl flew by and landed in front of them.

It took a moment, but Ruby gasped in some type of recognition next to him after the girl landed, “Penny?!”

 _Penny?_ Oscar looked at the girl again, a strange sense of familiarity washing over him. He recognized her, but he couldn’t place why.

“Darling, why don’t you say hello to your friends?” Pietro called as he came up behind them.

The girl dropped into a crouch before literally _launching_ herself at Ruby in one of the most joyful greetings he had ever seen. “It is such a pleasure to see you all again!” the girl exclaimed as she and Ruby got up.

As everyone moved towards Penny and Ruby, Oscar froze. Being closer to her and able to see her in better light, he suddenly understood where that recognition was coming from. _Penny_. _That_ was why she looked familiar. She…she was the other girl from Ozpin’s memories regarding the Fall of Beacon, the ones he saw that night Oz talked to Qrow about what happened. She was the robot girl who got ripped to shreds in Amity Arena. He shuddered at the thought, the memory Oz had unintentionally shared with him a while ago. She had been dismembered in the worst way that night, killed and used to make a statement by the enemy. The heartbreak Oz had felt over this girl that night had spilled into nothing but sympathy for her in Oscar.

“Penny, I…I-I thought you…” Ruby was on the verge of tears. They must have been close, that was the only explanation for Ruby’s reaction…and for Penny’s greeting. Everyone else’s reactions ranged from surprised to smiling.

“Died?” Pietro supplied for her and went over to Penny, “I guess, in a manner of speaking, she did. But we were able to recover her core from Amity Arena once it had made its way back to Atlas. It took me some time, but…”

“I’m as good as new! Better even!” Penny finished for him, “And _now_ I’m the official protector of the city!”

Oscar smiled a little, continuing to watch the interactions between Penny and her father, as well as her and Team RWBY. This was a good surprise. One of the several awful things that happened that night at Beacon suddenly wasn’t _quite_ so awful anymore. He wasn’t going to downplay the damage that had been done to Penny, though it seemed like she bounced back well, nor the impact everyone else most likely felt at seeing what happened to this girl…their _friend_ …get torn to shreds. But Penny was still alive. She was still alive and she was here in Atlas. Their enemies hadn’t taken everything they set out to that night. It was a small victory, in the grand scheme of things, but it was another thing to clutch on to…both from the Fall of Beacon and from the current state of Atlas. Hope was made of small victories like this.

It was something they really needed right now.

Grimm alarms started going off in the city again, cutting the otherwise happy reunion short. Penny left saying they would have to catch up later and that she couldn’t wait (at least, that’s what he _thought_ he heard her saying in her rushed goodbye) and the group turned to follow Pietro back into his pharmacy to continue their conversation from earlier. Hopefully now at least they could get some answers without being interrupted anymore, both to questions they came to Pietro with and now even more they had after seeing Penny. The need to start planning what their next steps should be in Atlas was starting to press down on him.

Everything seemed to settle as they were heading back, especially now that the immediate block had been cleared of Grimm and was starting to calm down. He only started to doubt that when Ren stilled beside him and turned towards his left. Oscar was about to ask what was going on, but before the question could leave his lips, he felt something crash into him and start wrapping around him with enough impact to drag him to the ground. He groaned and looked up, momentarily too stunned to do anything else, to see everyone else falling to the ground in some type of restraint. He glanced back at himself when Qrow finally fell to see the same thing on him, and attempted to pull against the ropes holding his arms to his back.

“Good work, team,” a man called out as people started coming out of the shadows around their group.

“Hey! What’s going on?!” Oscar struggled harder against the restraints wrapped around him as their captors approached. With a quick survey around the group, he counted five of them total, and they were all undoubtedly some form of Atlesian military based on the colors of their uniform. Had they already been tracked down? Had the military _really_ already figured out it was them who were on the stolen airship…that was what this was about, right?

“I’m a licensed Huntsman…just helped save everyone?!” Qrow shouted, attempting to get some form of credentials out there. It was worth a shot, maybe they would be willing to listen about how this was a misunderstanding of sorts. Ultimately it didn’t amount to anything, their captors didn’t even respond and instead moved to strip them of their weapons.

Oscar didn’t fight against his cane being taken from him, but as he watched the one with the fishhook, the man who was seemingly the leader of this Atlesian team, approach Ruby and the Relic, he felt some of his self-control break. A sudden rush jolted through him and he squirmed harder against his restraints, trying to kick at the person holding him down and inch forward towards her and the Lamp. _Damn it, anything but that!_ They had come so far protecting the Lamp, they couldn’t lose it now. Not when they finally made it to Atlas, not when they were so close to their goal! Not to someone who didn’t even seem like he knew what it was.

His struggling was futile, and Oscar eventually accepted defeat when whoever, or whatever, it was holding him down practically sat on him to keep him from moving any further. He locked eyes with Ruby after her please to the man holding the Lamp did nothing. Her wide eyes reflected his worry and desperation. They couldn’t lose the Lamp, not now, not after everything…but what were they supposed to do with everyone now restrained and weaponless? Ultimately captured because they stayed and _helped_ a bad situation?!

“What is the meaning of this?!” Pietro’s voice came from behind him, and he could hear the slightest bit of indignation in his tone, “What are the Ace-Ops even _doing_ down here in Mantle?”

Ace-Ops? He looked back to their captors and heaved a sigh. Well, the fancy title explained the modified uniforms at least. He could only guess they were some kind of special unit in the military, which explained how they took down nine, armed people so efficiently. Oscar sighed and pressed his head to the pavement, swallowing back the panic that was threatening to bubble out of him again. _Maybe_ it wasn’t all bad. If these Ace-Ops _were_ a special military unit, then maybe that meant they would be talking to Ironwood soon. It would’ve been much preferred if it weren’t by way of a jail cell first, but surely if the general saw students he knew at Beacon and an old friend, he wouldn’t _keep_ them in a jail cell…right?

Maybe then at least they could start getting to the bottom of just what exactly was going on around here.

“Doctor, good to see you,” the man with the Lamp greeted Pietro, almost too cavalier about the whole thing, “Well, we heard a report of an unauthorized ship making an unauthorized landing followed by an unauthorized use of weapons by non-licensed Huntsmen.”

Okay, well, the ship was a fair point, he’d give them that. But what were they supposed to do about a Grimm attack and the majority of them being non-licensed? Were they supposed to just stand by and potentially let a bad situation get worse? Even _if_ they had known Mantle had Penny protecting the city, they still would’ve gone out to fight the Grimm that were running through the streets. The quicker they could get rid of the Grimm, the lower the chances of anyone getting hurt. Not to mention, Penny was quick, but she couldn’t be everywhere at once, and the city defenses were clearly losing to the Grimm on their block.

They only wanted to help, and they’d make that decision again, of that he was sure.

“I-if we could just talk this out…”

“They’ll be able to talk this out once they get up to Atlas,” the man with the Lamp cut Pietro off before the doctor could make any sort of case for them. Oscar _did_ appreciate Pietro’s attempt to help though, he clearly knew who these operatives were and was still willing to try and use his position to defend the group. That meant something, even if it didn’t work out as they would’ve liked.

“Let’s move out!”

Before anyone could think to get another word out, the Ace-Ops left with their weapons and the Relic. Oscar groaned again at the irony of it all, and tried to calm the reemerging pit in his stomach. This wasn’t necessarily _awful_ if it really did lead them up to Ironwood. And if it really _did_ lead them up to Ironwood, then the Lamp got to exactly where they wanted it to be anyways…just…before they made it there themselves. This could be fine. It _would_ be fine. Once they talked to Ironwood, once they found their _ally_ , everything would be fine and they could finally get the explanations they had been seeking since they made it to Atlas.

He didn’t struggle when one of the Atlesian Knights picked him up off the ground and herded him along with everyone else into the back of a military ship. Oscar sat down in the back and sighed, hanging his head to look at his hands. He flexed his fingers a few times, shifting against the bolas around his wrists for no real purpose other than to move and get rid of some of the nervous energy he was feeling. He wasn’t _anxious_ per se, he wanted to believe this would inevitably lead to where they wanted to go. One way or another, this would get back to Ironwood, there was no doubt about that given the current setup of the kingdom. But as much as he wanted to believe the information would get back to a man who was still their ally, he wouldn’t deny he was nervous. If they just got the chance to _talk_ to him tonight, Oscar trusted it would be fine. But the situation in Mantle made him uneasy, the fleet above Atlas made him second guess.

Getting _arrested_ made him nervous.

Oscar glanced up as Qrow was the last one shoved into the ship. Qrow muttered something under his breath and the Atlesian soldiers overseeing their arrest slammed the back doors shut. He heaved another sigh when he felt the transport ship start to move and went back to staring at his hands. It was almost funny, getting arrested both was and wasn’t what he was expecting for the day. When they were still in Argus, attempting to escape from Cordovin in a stolen airship, jail had to be a real consideration for where they would wind up by the end of the day. Once they had cleared Argus, with Cordo’s permission nonetheless, he thought that threat was long behind them.

It was going to be such a long night.


	2. ...So Above...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact...this was supposed to be the first chapter of this fic. Then I liked what I wrote for Mantle too much. Then the first two chapters were originally supposed to be one chapter. For the sake of my sanity they were split. The rest of this fic doesn't follow the show as religiously, so everything from here on out should be quicker and better and I hopefully won't feel the need to rewrite it 3 times.
> 
> Anyways, some Rosegarden at the bottom if you want it. Some platonic Ruby and Oscar at the bottom if you want it. It's whatever, a la chapter 4 of this story's predecessor.

Atlas Academy was more imposing in person.

He had seen pictures and heard tales of the school countless times before, but while they spoke of the academy’s greatness, they somehow still didn’t do it justice. There was just something about landing in the City in the Sky and still having to crane his neck further to see the top of the academy’s peaks that really put it all into perspective. Oscar probably would have found it more amazing, more _inspiring_ , if he weren’t viewing it in person for the first time upon coming out of a military ship, restrained by a bolas infused with Gravity Dust, and considered a criminal of the kingdom’s law. Given _those_ qualifiers, the inspirational part was cut out and replaced by intimidation.

“I guess we _will_ be seeing the general after all…for better or for worse,” Ruby muttered. A small laugh escaped her, though it sounded far more nervous than it did amused. Given their circumstances, even _nervous_ probably didn’t scratch the surface of the anxiety they were all feeling.

The ride up to Atlas hadn’t helped _his_ fraying nerves any, at least. Their brief conversation with the one other convict only served to further darken and muddle the reality Atlas was living in. The conversation about Robyn Hill and the Happy Huntresses, whoever they were, didn’t lighten his thoughts any about Mantle. It was nice there was potentially someone out there fighting against whatever was happening with the city, but the fact that was needed at all was the problem. And the way their fellow passenger spoke about Ironwood and the Ace-Ops didn’t leave Oscar feeling a whole lot of comfort about what might be facing them at the end of their ride. The notion that the Ace-Ops were only deployed for people Ironwood “had a bone to pick” with, whatever that meant, was not a promising one.

When Qrow had announced they were going to Atlas Academy instead of a police station, Oscar had initially felt a bit of relief and hope. At least it wasn’t jail. But standing before it now, he could feel that hope melting into…something else…he wasn’t quite sure what to call it. Something between concern and trepidation.

He followed after Ruby and the others silently, taking the opportunity to look around and take it all in. Atlas Academy was a large school, at least compared to Haven, and it reflected its surroundings and city in every last piece of architecture he could see. Everything on the outside was shining metals and sparkling clean, lit up by the subtle blue and occasional bright, white lights to illuminate the area at night. The school’s emblem rested both on and above the main entrance, and he thought he could see some type of camera or security device in the mural above the door. He figured there were probably more too, ones hidden out of sight or ones that were so technologically advanced they couldn’t be seen. There were more than just the guards that pulled them from the ship too, Atlesian soldiers lined the way up to the entrance to the school.

Overall, Atlas Academy lived up to every expectation of Atlas itself, beautiful, technologically advanced, and tightly secure. Oscar couldn’t shake the thought that instead of a regular prison, it felt like they had been taken to a more advanced compound.

The inside of the academy felt much the same as it did outside. They were greeted by two more guards waiting for them and who took up the role of escorts to take them to wherever they were going. The hallways of the academy were as large as the outside suggested and just as impeccable. He couldn’t see much else because a majority of the room lights were off, but he was pretty sure they passed by a lecture hall and a hallway of smaller classrooms on their way, which did a little to soothe his discomfort towards the building. Not a lot, but it was a good reminder that this _was_ a school and not solely a military complex. It still certainly had a different feel from walking through Haven though, that much was for sure.

Granted, there were a lot of reasons for that. Most notably being he wasn’t a prisoner back at Haven and he wasn’t now having the vague sense that he had walked the halls of Atlas before.

Oscar pulled himself from his uneasy musings when he nearly ran face first into Yang’s back. Everyone had stopped as elevator doors in front of them opened with a ding. Their escorts herded them in quickly, and when the doors shut, pressed a button for their next destination. He couldn’t see what floor it was exactly, but it was decently high up there based on where the soldier pressed. The silence that remained between them all was only _more_ uncomfortable in the confines of the elevator.

“So…what do we do?” Ren asked quietly in front of him, leaning in to make it obvious he was talking to Ruby. Having some kind of plan for this was a good idea, even if it was vague. It was anyone’s guess what they would be met with, but having some semblance of an approach to what they might encounter, even small, would be a help in the end.

“I…don’t know yet,” she admitted, “But we should be careful with what we say.”

Oscar cringed slightly when she said that aloud. It was an obvious necessity for what they were going into, considering they were going in blind, but he figured everyone was aware of that by now. Their escorts, one of whom glanced back at them with Ruby’s comment, didn’t need to know, however.

“We’ll follow your lead, Ruby,” Blake muttered.

The elevator slowed to a halt and the doors opened in front of them. That was the best plan they were going to get then, but he wasn’t going to complain. There was no reason to. Having one person take point on this was a good way to keep what they did and didn’t say straight. And following _Ruby’s_ lead in particular was what they had been doing since Haven. Well, that’s how long _he_ had been doing it anyways, with her being a team leader he imagined the others had been doing it for even longer.

They all followed out of the elevator and were greeted with more of the same from the previous floor. The hallways were still just as large and immaculately kept, a few darkened classrooms were interspersed here and there, and essentially no one else was in sight. The moon’s light shining through the windows cast shadows that were even longer than the ones on the lower floor, somehow making the entire atmosphere of the school even _more_ imposing. Or maybe that was just his nerves talking as they moved closer towards whatever destination awaited them.

As they were walking down a short set of stairs to an intersection of yet another cluster of hallways, he heard the faint sound of voices. The sound grew louder as someone approached them, and a second later, three people appeared in front of them without taking much notice of the group of prisoners coming in behind them. Oscar recognized all three of them and came to a halt in the back, staring at the retreating figures of the general and his right hand, as well as the Protector of Mantle they had met earlier.

Well, this was it, wasn’t it?

Penny was the first to notice them, which seemed all too fitting given what he knew and saw of the girl earlier. “Yay! You’re here!” she exclaimed and smiled, causing the other two behind her to turn around and actually acknowledge them.

For a fleeting second, Penny’s excited greeting relieved something in him. Even if it was only the girl who felt any sense of happiness at seeing them, at least _someone_ was for sure on their side up here in Atlas. That relief quickly vanished and was replaced with unease when they were all suddenly placed under the surprised and hardened gazes of General James Ironwood and Special Operative Winter Schnee.

“Winter?” Weiss was the first to react, stepping out from behind Ruby and looking at her sister.

The surprise at seeing her sister momentarily melted the stern demeanor emanating off of Winter. It was almost startling to see really, because of how similar it was to Weiss. Oscar had grown used to seeing Weiss’s kindness and care for her teammates and friends shining through the sometimes…uh… _haughty_ image she could portray. Watching Winter shift in the exact same way from the controlled, poised military personnel into someone who was surprised to see her sister and so obviously _loved_ her was a striking display in the familial bond they must have shared. He understood where Weiss got it from now.

“Anyone wanna help with these?” Nora moved next to Weiss, holding up her restrained arms and wiggling her fingers. Leave it to her to take the opportunity presented to them, not that he could blame her. He really wanted out of the restraints too.

It was like day and night watching Winter immediately shift back into her military persona and gruffly order their escorts to remove their restraints. The guards were surprised, but quickly went to work setting all of them free. As he waited for his turn, Oscar’s attention shifted from Winter to Ironwood. The general was watching them all with a hint of a smile, the surprise and hardness in his blue eyes replaced with relief and a look of what Oscar could only describe as fondness. It was…unexpected, to say the least, but certainly a welcomed sight. As the guards finally got to him and freed him of the bolas, he couldn’t say he wasn’t pleased by finally knowing _this_ was what awaited them; it was significantly better than the worst he was preparing for.

But it only raised more questions about everything else.

“Please, come in,” Ironwood motioned and turned around, walking into the room they all were being escorted to as prisoners a few minutes ago.

Oscar slowly looked around the room that was Ironwood’s office, absentmindedly rubbing his wrists as they walked in. The room was beautiful in its own right, with its domed windows open to the sky above and soft blue lighting. The floor had a large tile with Atlas’s emblem on it, and there were some books and rather generic looking statues lining the walls, but much beyond that it wasn’t very personalized at all. It wasn’t like the glimpses he had gotten of Ozpin’s office at Beacon, and it wasn’t like the memories he had—the memories Oz _made_ him have—of Lionheart’s office at Haven. The only thing in the office was Ironwood’s desk, positioned under the windows and the skyscape. It almost felt more like an observatory…a _watchtower_ than it did a headmaster’s office.

“It is so good to see all of you,” Ironwood continued, standing to the side as they all came into his office.

“Our reception didn’t really convey that,” Yang retorted, but she was right. Getting arrested after fending off Grimm hadn’t exactly signaled he was _happy_ they were here.

Oscar looked at the general when he sighed. “I sincerely regret how you were treated by my team,” Ironwood admitted and, after everyone was in, moved towards his desk.

He watched Ironwood closely, suddenly plagued with the knowledge that this wasn’t the man he knew. This wasn’t the same man he had seen on the news countless times in the past, this wasn’t the same man from those videos. This wasn’t even the same man they had just seen on those recordings throughout Mantle. The lines on his face and the bags under his eyes spoke to how tired the general was, and the way he walked said a lot too. It was still stilted, still the controlled manner of a military official, but Ironwood’s shoulders hunched just a little, like they were bowing to the weight of something completely unseen, and his footsteps to his desk were heavier than they should have been.

Oscar was reminded of what Pietro had told them just a little while ago, “I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was he saw there, but it changed him…He’s…paranoid…” He didn’t know what the general saw at Beacon either, but he could take a guess at what it was and, more importantly, he could see what scars it left. If nothing else, it was clear Ironwood had been through hell and back, and whatever burdens he may have acquired there had only grown in weight since.

He felt a twinge of sympathy. The restrictions on Mantle weren’t right, the entirety of how the kingdom was being handled _wasn’t_ right, but he saw now they were clearly the result of a man currently struggling to do what he thought was best. Someone who was trying to reemerge from under the shadow of the tragedy he had witnessed and endured.

And if nothing else, Oscar could relate to that.

“When a rogue airship entered our airspace, it raised some…red flags,” Ironwood continued and sat down at his desk, “We assumed the airship was stolen.”

“Stolen?!” Ruby exclaimed and laughed nervously, already making it all too obvious that was _exactly_ what happened. She stuttered for a moment before sighing, “Okay…yeah, it was stolen.”

Oscar didn’t say anything as she stumbled her way to admitting it, they had all silently agreed to follow her lead before they came in. And he believed it was better to be upfront and honest about it at the start, but still he couldn’t deny the apprehension he felt in the split second between looking at Ruby and looking to Ironwood. Even with the warmer welcome they received upon _actually_ meeting Ironwood, it was possible an act like that, stealing from the Atlas military and then admitting to it, would quickly turn everything against their favor. He believed in being honest, but it was still smart to be cautious about the results.

Much to his surprise, and a bit of relief, it wasn’t Ironwood who was angry with that. Instead, the man seemed downright _amused_ at the situation as he chuckled quietly at Ruby’s admittance. It was Winter who looked like she was ready to kill someone. She started storming towards them, her icy gaze focused on Weiss as she demanded, “You _stole_ an Atlas airship? What were you _thinking_!? You might’ve been _shot down!_ How _unbelievably_ irresponsible—”

The older Schnee’s rant was cut off by Weiss, who walked up to her sister and hugged her. Winter’s anger wasn’t out of genuine fury then, it was out of worry…that wasn’t really unexpected. So Winter was like that too, huh? Oscar hadn’t seen it _as_ much in Weiss, but she had her moments; the battle with Cordo and her robot earlier today was just the latest in a handful.

“I’m sorry I worried you, but we did what we had to do,” Weiss said, half muffled from speaking into her sister’s shoulder.

“I...” Winter sighed and that militaristic shell melted away again as she eased into Weiss’s hug, “I suppose I understand.” After a moment, her sharp blue gaze directed itself at Qrow, “But I cannot _believe_ that you allowed this to happen, Qrow!”

Qrow shrugged, “You try stopping these kids when they have their mind set on something. Speaking of which…” he trailed off and looked at Ironwood, “We have some important information for you that’s… _confidential_.” Setting all the greetings aside, and Oscar _was_ happy for Weiss getting a chance to reunite with her sister, they did have a lot of business to attend to here.

“Oh! Is it about the Relics?” Penny chimed.

“Or perhaps the Winter Maiden?” Winter added, returning to Ironwood’s side.

Qrow’s eyes widened in surprise, “You told them?”

Oscar wasn’t quite sure why the Huntsman was surprised at this turn of events. He and Ozpin had told the group of students here now the exact same things. It only made sense that Ironwood would seek out allies after the Fall of Beacon, he likely needed them just as much as Qrow and Oz felt they did. And just from what little he knew of the three and seeing them interact tonight, it was obvious Ironwood trusted Penny and Winter. More people knowing what they were doing and what they needed to protect wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it was simply knowledge they deserved to have.

Oscar felt the same way when he fought to reveal everything to Team RWBY.

Ironwood stood up and opened a drawer on his desk only to pull out the Relic of Knowledge. Oscar blew out a breath. _Good_. That meant he was ultimately right about the Ace-Ops and their arrest, it led back to Ironwood in the end…which he wouldn’t deny held its own set of implications, but for the moment all he focused on was the relieved happiness he felt over the Lamp finally being here, where they wanted it to be.

“Did you really think you were the only one who got to work on a new plan after Beacon?” Ironwood asked, “With Ozpin gone—” Oscar looked away from the man for a moment, “—I needed my own team of people I could trust. So yes, I told them. The Ace-Ops too.”

That…made some semblance of sense. It at least explained why the man with the fishhook took interest in the Lamp, even if he didn’t know what it was. It didn’t explain why, if the Ace-Ops knew about them though, they still attacked and arrested them.

“That’s why I’m so glad you’re here…with this,” Ironwood said, gesturing to the Relic, “Until now, I believed it was impossible to… _truly_ turn the tide against Salem.” And just like that, Oscar was pretty sure he didn’t like where this was going. “Oz has pushed her back, has kept victory out of her claws, but she will keep returning stronger and stronger…unless we destroy her.”

 _Of course_.

It made sense. The embargos, the restrictions, the military presence, all of it suddenly made sense. Why did Atlas look like it was preparing for war? Because it _was_. Ironwood was. Anyone who knew about Salem would want this, to destroy her and finally be rid of her. It was a wish they all still probably harbored, even though they knew better. Even though they knew Salem _couldn’t_ be destroyed. Especially after the Fall of Beacon and seeing just how powerful she was, it made sense that Ironwood would move forward with what he could to finally put an end to this millennia long war. It made sense that he would do whatever he thought was necessary. All of this for a futile goal, a futile goal Ironwood didn’t even _know_ was pointless.

 _It’s not pointless_.

No. No, it wasn’t pointless. Pointless wasn’t the word he was looking for. What they wanted wasn’t pointless, the longer they staved her off, the longer they gave humanity a chance, the better. That wasn’t pointless, that would _never_ be pointless. But living like this, forcing others to live like this for a goal that could not be achieved? That certainly wasn’t worthwhile.

“But…what about the Atlas Relic?” Ruby asked, though he wasn’t sure to what end. The Atlas Relic was the Staff…right? That couldn’t really play a part in any play to destroy Salem when it was meant for creation, could it?

“You mean the Staff of Creation?”

“It’s safe inside the Vault!” Penny chipped in.

“And the Winter Maiden?” Qrow asked.

“She is secure and in stable condition,” Winter informed. That…didn’t sound great. He had memories from Ozpin about what ‘stable condition’ had meant for the Fall Maiden. For her it had meant kept barely alive on life support until someone else could take her power.

“Stable condition? What does that—”

“She’s…uh…not exactly a spring chicken,” Qrow clarified. Okay, well that was better than what Fall had gone through, he supposed. Still, the way Qrow said it made it seem like they were on the verge of losing _another_ Maiden, and given that they had already lost Fall to Cinder that wasn’t exactly a great spot to be in.

The awkward silence that followed those bits of information spoke more than what anyone could’ve said ever would. The air was filled with unease, at the issues regarding the Maidens, both the spoken about Winter and the underlying implications of Fall being with Salem and Spring being missing, and at the issues regarding the Relics, with Oz being the only one to know where Beacon’s was and Haven’s being compromised. At the issues regarding Salem as a whole, with the insinuations of what Ironwood wanted to do and the unspoken understanding between the group that it _couldn’t_ be done. At the issues of what Ironwood himself was doing to try and move closer to that goal.

The general, for his part, read the room partially right. He sighed, “I know how this all looks. Recalling my military? The embargo? I probably don’t seem the most trustworthy right now.”

At least he acknowledged it. None of those portrayed him in a good light or as being trustworthy, exactly. None of them were good options, none of them did anything but withhold help from people who needed it and made his own citizens suffer more.

“Then why continue it?” Blake asked.

“The people of Mantle are hurting!” Nora added, and Oscar noted the underlying frustration and distress in her voice. It was vastly different from what he was used to hearing from Nora, but given how she reacted to Mantle as a whole he knew it wasn’t coming from nowhere. He didn’t know where it _was_ coming from but…there was something there. Something that he wasn’t privy to.

“I needed to ensure Salem couldn’t infiltrate Atlas,” Ironwood insisted, “And I wanted my military _here_ , protecting my people.”

“But it’s not protecting them!” Yang shouted, “It’s making everyone hate you.”

“It’s a price I’m willing to pay.” The solemn tone of his voice indicated Ironwood already made his decision, and made it seem like he had put a great deal of thought into it, whatever plan he had.

Oscar wasn’t so sure. Ironwood spoke about the price he was willing to pay as if it was only his reputation on the line. That _was_ a part, people were already starting to hate him, to see him as a tyrant. Oscar didn’t believe that, not yet anyways, but he _was_ misguided; he was certainly letting what happened at Beacon affect his decisions too much, at least. It was understandable, the horror and tragedy of Beacon’s fall was still at the forefront of a lot of people’s minds, even if it had been a month or two ago, but reacting like this wouldn’t comfort or inspire anyone.

It only stoked fear.

And if the laws and restrictions Ironwood was making continued down the path they had started, they were only going to get worse. Mantle was going to be squeezed more and more for it, and that was only going to lead to more Grimm coming to the city. And more Grimm never led to anything good. Ironwood spoke of paying the price as if the cost was just going to be his reputation, and not lives. All of this for a goal that couldn’t be achieved, a goal they _knew_ couldn’t be achieved. Salem couldn’t be destroyed.

_We have to tell him._

“Just as you all have been entrusted with the knowledge of Salem’s existence, I need you all to trust _me_. I have a plan,” Ironwood continued. He pushed a button on his desk and shutters came down around the windows. Oscar felt something shift below his feet, and he stepped off the emblem in wonder as a table slowly rose out from below it.

“Ozpin believed the best way to fight Salem was to do so in secret. Whether that was the right choice or not isn’t for me to say.” It wasn’t for _any_ of them to say, and Oscar included himself in that as well. “But we find ourselves in a position of needing…well…a new approach.”

“And what do you suggest?” Qrow asked. The Huntsman sounded rather skeptical that Ironwood would have a decent plan.

Instead of answering, Ironwood pressed a button on a small remote. A holographic blueprint popped up above the table of…Amity?

“That’s Amity Colosseum,” Jaune pointed out.

“Where the Vytal Festival is held?” Oscar asked, looking to Ironwood for some clues as to where he was going. Amity and the Vytal Festival were symbols across Remnant of unity and peace. The Festival was a time when all the kingdoms came together and celebrated each other and their best and brightest of the upcoming generation. They had also, more recently, become symbols of great loss and tragedy. What could it possibly be used for now?

“Indeed,” Ironwood nodded, “When Beacon fell and everyone on Remnant lost contact with one another, I knew our current system was outdated. Amity was built to bring the nations together, and it _will_ serve that purpose once again,” he explained and pressed another button on the remote. The top of Amity grew with the button press.

An…antenna? Oscar looked around to see if anyone else understood where this was going, but he was only met with other pairs of confused eyes.

“Isn’t it great?” Penny asked, “We’re not going to just replace Beacon Tower. Building a new tower on _top_ of Amity Colosseum will re-establish global communications!”

Oh. That _was_ a lofty goal, but a worthwhile one. Communications going down after Beacon’s fall was a major detriment to Remnant as a whole. Goodness, if they still had continental communications, half of this night could’ve been avoided, and that was a non-issue compared to leaders not being able to contact one another.

Haven could’ve been avoided.

“By launching the tower high into the atmosphere, our scientists believe we can create a sort of…satellite out of the reach of the Grimm and capable of maintaining global communications even if we were to lose another tower,” Winter added on.

“That _is_ great,” Ruby muttered.

And it _was_ great. But…

“James…” Qrow muttered and looked at the general, “You don’t need the entire military for this.”

But an entire military was not needed for an operation like this, even if it was to launch something as big as Amity Colosseum into the air. Some, sure, but this was mostly a job for the aforementioned scientists, it didn’t require an entire military. Which meant there was more to this than just reestablishing communications that Ironwood was planning.

“I will for the next part, where I finally tell the people about Salem.”

And there it was.

Oscar’s stomach dropped at the thought, and the feeling he was left with was nothing short of bitter irony at the situation before him. A week ago, he would’ve agreed with Ironwood whole-heartedly. People had a right to know their enemy, they had a right to know what they were facing and fighting against. What they were fighting _for_. A week ago he wanted to know the same thing.

He didn’t regret the decision, and it wasn’t that he necessarily disagreed with that now. He still believed people had a right to know, but it was hard to fully agree with a plan coming from someone who didn’t know the full truth himself. It was harder still to agree with someone who preemptively reacted like… _this_. There was no way Ironwood would be rushing ahead with this project so readily if he knew. There was a lot more to consider…there was a lot more Ironwood _had_ to consider before he went forward with this. It wasn’t that it shouldn’t be done, it wasn’t even that it _couldn’t_ be done, just…it would be more difficult.

The truth was…complicated, and it complicated everything else along with it. Honesty had gotten Oscar this far, he didn’t doubt it, but for a second he had to wonder if his approach had been for better or for worse. Were there better ways to tell someone? No one would react well to the information regarding Salem, but how badly would Ironwood react? Would he listen if he was told there were other measures he could take? Would he believe that he could still go through with this plan to tell the world about her?

Would he lose the last shreds of hope he had? 

No…no, none of that mattered. Oscar would never be able to correctly guess the consequences and reactions of those around him. Even when he was so sure RWBY and JNR would do the right thing, he still had to admit it was an educated guess. Knowing Ironwood for even less time meant he couldn’t even make a guess for the general. All that mattered was that honesty was the _right_ thing to do, giving people the truth was the right thing to do, no matter the consequences. They couldn’t be living in a world of white lies to make it easier on themselves, not when so much was at stake.

Besides, the truth always had a way of coming out in the end anyways.

He just had to have faith in the people around him. He _did_ have faith in the people around him—his _friends_ —ever since he gave them the truth. And despite seeing everything around him, he wanted to have faith in Ironwood too. The rest of the group had faith in him, they wouldn’t have been so hard pressed to get to Atlas if they didn’t. Qrow had faith in him, despite the Huntsman’s current annoyance at how they were brought in. _Oz_ had faith in him, otherwise he wouldn’t have become Atlas’s headmaster, of that Oscar was sure.

If Oz trusted him, then he should trust him too. The general was misguided perhaps, making mistakes and missteps in his handling of the kingdom, but Oscar felt it was apparent that he was trying his best in an awful situation. He was trying to protect his people and all of Remnant in one.

And if he was doing that, Ironwood deserved to be doing it while knowing the full truth.

“Huh, so that’s why you withdrew your troops,” Qrow said, “To handle the panic that would break out in Atlas.”

“Yes, panic is inevitable, and panic brings Grimm,” Ironwood agreed. Of course panic was inevitable, that was why Ozpin hid it from the masses. But the Grimm were already here, from the Fall of Beacon, the attempt at Haven, and from…Ironwood’s own doing with his restrictions on Mantle. “But I believe we are ready. Once Atlas has come to grips with the fight ahead, I’ll use Amity Tower to spread the message to _all_ of Remnant.”

“But everything will fall apart!” Weiss exclaimed, “Grimm will be _everywhere_!”

Winter nodded, “You’re right, but Atlas is willing and prepared to assist.”

“Trying to hide the truth from the world will eventually kill us all,” Ironwood declared and turned his security measures off with his remote, the hologram disappearing as the table receded back into the floor and the shutters opened to let the light of the moon back into the office.

Oscar didn’t disagree, but that had to be a proclamation that was made on false information. Or at the very least, a proclamation that was made without the full truth. This decision had to be made while considering everything else at play, it _had_ to.

“Oz spent his whole life, _many lives_ , keeping this secret,” Qrow told him.

Secrets that his new life…his next incarnation— _Oscar_ himself had shared.

Oscar looked down at his right hand as he brushed it over the top of his cane, his fingers curling around it as another, silent apology formed in his mind. Oz had spent _many_ lives keeping _many_ secrets. It wasn’t without merit, he had his reasons and Oscar knew that. He had caught glimpses of it on that snowy mountain top, memory of person after person turning away from Oz over centuries. The pain of it, the sadness of that many betrayals could make a man grow wary, to say the least. He could sympathize, and Oscar never doubted that Oz was a good man, someone they _could_ trust whenever he decided to return, but that didn’t mean he agreed with the choice.

They were similar souls, but not the same, and while he felt guilt for the pain he caused, Oscar also knew he had been proven right. One look around the room at who was still there was all that needed to be done.

“I know,” Ironwood sighed, “But since Beacon, things have changed.”

Things _had_ changed. The state of the world had changed, Salem’s plans had changed. Ozpin had changed, the knowledge of those around him had changed. The person expected to now lead the charge in this millennia old war had changed.

Ironwood turned around, heading back towards his desk, before continuing, “Without him here to guide us, all I can do is use my best judgment.”

That was all any of them _could_ do. It was all Oscar had been doing since he had been thrown into this mess and went on his way to Haven, using his best judgment…doing what he thought was _right_ to guide himself and others out of this situation, something he never thought he would’ve been doing if someone had asked him two months ago. He sighed, clenching his hands for a moment before letting them fall back to his sides and shifting uncomfortably at the new realization.

In the midst of everything, _Oscar_ himself had changed. For better or for worse.

Ironwood must have noticed his discomfort, because he suddenly found himself under the general’s gaze, “What is it?”

It was everything. There was so much he wanted to tell the general: who he was, where Oz was, what happened, what they _knew_. It was starting to make his head swim. Where did he even begin with such an open-ended question? Well, it seemed like Ironwood knew about Oz’s reincarnation at least, which made sense. All of the headmasters should know that. Best to start with the basics then, “Actually, Oz isn’t… _completely_ gone.”

“Uh…” Qrow spoke up behind him and he felt the Huntsman take a step toward him. At least he wouldn’t be alone in explaining this, “Oscar here is…is the next Ozpin.”

 _No, I’m **not**_.

Oscar almost revolted at the thought. He was the next reincarnation, but he wasn’t Ozpin…he wouldn’t _become_ the next Ozpin. He had already established himself as being different than his predecessor. He had tried and fought and _won_ the right to be seen for who he was in this group. He was Oscar Pine, he would remain Oscar Pine. But he couldn’t completely blame Qrow, it was the… _quickest_ way to explain his status.

“Oz?”

Something burning twisted in his stomach, and Oscar took a stumbling step backwards as Ironwood approached him and dropped to his level to look at him. The smile on the man’s face, the relief and _hope_ in his eyes was…it was too much. His stomach flopped further down. With such a simple admittance, Ironwood was looking at him as if he were a savior. No…no not _him_. He was looking at him as if he were _Oz_ …as if Oz were a savior. And that wasn’t fair to anyone here at all, though Oscar understood clearly how it had reached that point.

_“This is what keeping secrets does, Oz.”_

Neither of them was infallible, no matter what anyone else believed. It was dangerous to think otherwise.

“I’m so glad you’re here. I didn’t think you—”

Oscar had to put his hands up to interrupt Ironwood. He wasn’t going to let the man go on, asking questions that he wasn’t going to get the answers to. Oscar wasn’t going to let his own dread continue at being mistaken for something… _someone_ he wasn’t. It was better to put an end to this right now. “Not quite,” he shook his head, “He’s…kind of…um… _gone_ at the moment.” That was the best way to explain it. Oz wasn’t _gone_ gone but…not currently present. He was gone enough to not expect him to come around anytime soon.

And that was alright. Oscar would take care of what he needed to until then, even if he didn’t know how yet. Even if it was _a lot_ more than he was expecting.

“That’s not normal,” Ironwood muttered. He looked to the ground and Oscar could see the dejection replace the hope he had just felt. The general steeled himself and met his eyes again, “How did he—”

“We—”

“We don’t know.”

Oscar had been prepared to launch into the explanation. He was prepared to tell Ironwood about the train crash on the way to Argus, about the Lamp, about what they _saw_. About Salem. He was prepared to impart everything they had been through up until now and explain why Oz was gone and how he knew that he would be back at some point. Ironwood had a right to know, especially with his current plan, he _needed_ to know. Instead, his eyes widened, and he looked back to Ruby as she spoke.

As she _lied_.

“We were in a train crash, and ever since, well…” she continued with a weak shrug, “Suddenly, Oz wasn’t there anymore.”

There was no _suddenly_ about it. They knew why Ozpin was gone, they had caused it. Lying about it now was only going to delay the inevitable, it was only going to make it worse when the truth finally _did_ come out. And it was going to come out, with Ironwood’s plan it _had_ to. This…he didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. _But_ , they had all agreed to follow Ruby’s lead. He wasn’t going to say anything to counter it, not yet at least…he just hoped she had a good reason to do this.

No, he didn’t have to hope. Oscar knew why she did it, it was understandable. Justifiable. It was the same reason Oz did it.

_Does that make it better?_

“That’s the worst news yet,” Ironwood sighed. He shook his head and got to his feet, “Did you learn anything from him about the Relics before…?”

“He told us the Lamp can answer three questions,” Ruby said. He had a feeling he knew where she was going with this, “ _But_ , all the questions were used up already.”

Yeah. Oscar glanced around the room. Nora seemed okay with this decision, the choice to _lie_ to Ironwood right now about what was happening, but everyone else seemed to have at least some degree of uncertainty over it. He dared to look back at Qrow out of curiosity, though all the Huntsman was doing was staring at his niece with an unreadable expression.

“Right…right,” Ironwood sighed again and walked back to his desk. There was a pregnant pause as he stared out the window in contemplation before he turned around to face them, “Ozpin told us that too, once upon a time. At least we have you, Oscar. You’re safe here in Atlas. Maybe together we can figure out how to bring Ozpin back.”

“Thank you, sir!” Oscar smiled in return. After a moment, he realized sir was probably too formal…or informal? He stood to attention and added, “I mean…uh…general. Uh…Ironwood?”

He hoped his appreciation seemed real, and in some sense he supposed it was, but for the most part it certainly didn’t _feel_ real. He wasn’t about to broadcast his unease with the situation though, it would make it too clear that there was something else going on behind Ruby’s words, and he wasn’t about to do anything regarding that without talking to her alone first. And he certainly wasn’t about to get into another conversation about how _he_ wasn’t Ozpin either. He was way too tired for that and, admittedly, he had given that speech _way_ too many times for his liking in the past week. Oscar would deal with it later, but just from that conversation alone he felt a bit of discontent at the _welcome_ he had just received. While the promise of security and safety was nice, it wasn’t for him…wasn’t for _Oscar_.

It was for Oz’s _vessel_.

When no one said anything, he felt relieved enough that his appreciation passed. Ironwood instead picked up the Relic and walked back over to Ruby. Much to Oscar’s surprise, he offered it back to her. That…didn’t make him feel any better. Whatever his mix of emotions were towards the general after their exchange, it didn’t change the fact they had just lied to this man and now here he was, giving them a sign of trust by giving them back the Relic they brought to him.

“You’re…giving it back to me?” Ruby asked.

“After what happened with the Ace-Ops, I don’t want you to think I’m keeping anything from you—” But _they_ were keeping things from _him_. “—Especially something as important as this,” Ironwood smiled and held out the Lamp a little more, “For the time being, I think it’s safest with the people who brought it here.”

Ruby took the Relic and shrunk it down, sticking it back on her belt, “Um, thank you.” She nodded at Ironwood and then glanced over to meet his gaze. Her silver eyes were conflicted, and Oscar had to wonder if she saw what he was thinking, if maybe she felt as bad as he did for what she just pulled.

“We must work together if we’re to fight Salem and win,” Ironwood nodded, “Now, if you’re all on board…”

Oscar looked to Ruby, then at everyone else. Conflicting emotions aside over what just happened, everyone perked up at Ironwood’s insinuation. Without a doubt, everyone wanted to help. At least that was something they could all still agree on.

“Tell us how we can help,” Ruby agreed for them all.

Were they all on board though? Could they _really_ be on board if they didn’t tell Ironwood what was going on?

Oscar only half-listened to the rest of the meeting, too focused on containing the nausea growing in his stomach and the unrelenting thought they just lied to Ironwood ringing in his ears. Winter stepped forward to talk to them about weapons and upgrades before they were dismissed, but he was already too far gone at that point. Luckily nothing really pertained to him anyways, no one was going to be able to upgrade a thousand-year-old cane that went through regular maintenance by its reincarnated owner.

It was the least of Oscar’s concerns, too. _Ironwood needs to know the truth_. He wanted to talk to Ruby. He already knew the answer she would give him about why she did what she did, but he suddenly _needed_ to hear it come from her. He needed to know that she knew where he stood on this, because he knew where they were right now wasn’t going to lead to anything good.

As they left Ironwood’s office, Oscar tried to scuttle in between Yang and Blake to get Ruby, but was immediately denied any chance to ask her for a moment by the Ace-Ops. Though it was nice to get an explanation over the misunderstanding down in Mantle, and nicer still to know they were looking forward to working with the group…or, Team RWBY at least, it did nothing to settle his stomach. If anything, the Ace-Ops’ eagerness to work alongside them and be going into this fight essentially blind only strengthened his need to talk to Ruby.

None of this was _right_.

Penny found them right after and immediately insisted she take them on a tour of the academy. While it was a sweet gesture, by the time they saw the cafeteria, Oscar found himself growing frustrated and tired. It had already been an _incredibly_ long day, and all he wanted to do was drag himself into a bed and sleep it off. But his mind was still insisting he needed to talk to Ruby, which now he wasn’t even sure was going to be _possible_ because of the time. By the time Penny showed them to the dorms they would be staying in and they got the least bit settled in, it was already really late, and Oscar had all but given up on the hope he would be able to catch Ruby before she went to sleep.

It could wait until tomorrow, it was going to _have_ to wait until tomorrow, but he wasn’t sure if his own mind was going to relent before then.

The events of the day felt like weights hanging off of his feet as Oscar exited the shared bathroom after getting ready for bed. His mind only made it worse, constantly repeating that Ironwood needed to know over and over until he was sure he was going to hear it in his dreams. If his mind even let him sleep tonight. He didn’t know _why_ this was bothering him so much, nor why it had to be Ruby who he talked to. He just knew that the only way he was going to get himself to shut off was if he talked to her. At the very least, it would at least let him vent some of his frustrations and clarify they were on the same page.

He wanted to call it fate that he saw her heading back to her dorm room as he exited the bathroom, though it was probably just good timing. Whatever it was, he felt a wave of relief at being able to catch her before they all inevitably passed out.

“Ruby…wait!” Oscar called out through the hall. He tried not to yell, but he wasn’t exactly quiet, and he hoped no one had already fallen asleep. The girl stopped and turned back to him before offering a tired smile, and he forced his legs into a light jog to make up the space between them.

“Hey, Oscar,” she greeted and titled her head, “What’s up?”

“Nothing…uh…nothing important,” he said and immediately kicked himself internally. It _was_ important, it just wasn’t a life-or-death situation or _technically_ about their next plans. It just didn’t _feel_ as important as some of the other conversations they had needed to have the past few days. “I just…can we talk for a moment?”

Ruby sighed and the cheery façade she tried to keep up slipped a little. She looked as exhausted as he felt, and he knew that meant she was probably even more exhausted. “Is this about Ironwood?” she guessed.

“Yeah…” he trailed off. He was unsurprised that she guessed, given how she looked in his office, but was still unsure of how to proceed. Oscar didn’t want to make her think he was doubting her, because that wasn’t it really. He had already guessed her reasons and they were valid ones. But it still didn’t sit right, and for whatever reason he knew it _wouldn’t_ sit right until he heard those reasons from her. “I know we said we would follow your lead, and I will. I _am_. But I…I just wanna know why,” he explained finally and shrugged, “After everything we’ve done and seen…after we felt finding out Oz lied to us…why lie now? To him?”

Ruby didn’t respond at first, instead looking around the hall, presumably to make sure no one else was around to hear her. Particularly Atlesian soldiers and guards. “I don’t know, I mean…” she trailed off with a sigh. When she looked at him, Oscar could see the concern and the confusion and the _tiredness_ she felt reflected in her eyes. This was taking just as much of a toll on her as it was everyone else, maybe even more so, and he felt a little guilty for bringing it up, especially now. But he _needed_ to know. “Oscar, you saw how Mantle is. You saw how we actually got to Ironwood,” she sighed again and shook her head, eyes downcast, “It’s not good here. And the general…I know that he’s _trying_ , but we don’t know how he would’ve reacted, and I didn’t want to take away what hope he had with his plan. Not tonight, at least.”

It was the answer Oscar expected, that Mantle and Atlas were already in a heightened state of alarm, that Ironwood seemed unstable even if he was trying his best, that at least for now she wanted him to believe his best could work. It was the answer he expected, but it still calmed some of his concerns to hear Ruby actually _say_ it. It meant, at least, that there weren’t any underlying motives. It was just…complicated. And it still didn’t negate all of the drawbacks.

“Ruby, there are flaws to his plan,” he said, voice quiet. He knew he was speaking about things she already thought of, “There are things he has to consider that he doesn’t even _know_ about.” He knew she knew this already, and he was trying to be as gentle as possible with his reminder, “Telling the world about Salem without knowing that she can’t be defeated is _dangerous_.”

“I know. I _know_ ,” she agreed without an argument. Her shoulders slumped, and Oscar felt that guilt again, “I just…I want more information about him, about how Atlas is doing, before we say anything. I wanna help him out some too, before we tell him. Maybe it’ll…soften it or something?” she shrugged weakly.

“I understand, just…” Oscar trailed off and sighed. He glanced at the ceiling for a moment, not quite believing what he was about to say. But then, he totally believed it, it had been his underlying thought since this whole thing started, “It just feels a lot like what Ozpin did.”

Ruby frowned and looked away from him. “I know,” she muttered again.

When they were still in Argus, only last night, Oscar had thought that Ruby seemed to be the first of their group to be growing more sympathetic towards what Ozpin had done, outside of himself anyways. These situations weren’t easy, he realized that a while ago and had accepted that even if he didn’t agree with Ozpin’s methods, he understood where they were coming from.

Being forced into the same situation, Ruby seemed to be coming to terms with it too.

“I don’t intend to keep it from Ironwood forever, though,” Ruby added and looked back at him, “We’ll tell him eventually because…you’re right. His plan is dangerous even if he knew everything, keeping this information from him only makes it that much worse. I just think we should stick around and get some more information here first before we drop that on him,” she looked away sheepishly, “It’s not like _we_ took the information very well…and we’re not leading a whole kingdom…”

Oscar closed his eyes and nodded, letting out a breath of relief. _That_ was really what he wanted to hear. Knowing that she did intend on telling Ironwood eventually was a small weight off of his shoulders. He still didn’t like lying to the man immediately, but he understood Ruby’s reasoning at least. It was good to confirm it was what he expected, that she just wanted to be cautious now that they were in Atlas and given what they had seen so far. “Okay…okay,” he agreed with a nod, “Just so long as it’s soon. The truth has a funny way of coming around…whether we want it to or not. We want him to hear it from us.”

“Yup,” Ruby nodded, popping the ‘p’ at the end of the word. After a moment, she let out a massive yawn, one it seemed like she had been holding in for a while. “Besides, it’s been a long day. A _really_ long day,” she added, “If we told him tonight, it would’ve only made the night even longer, and I didn’t want to do that to anyone,” she paused and he resisted the urge to squirm under her sympathetic gaze, “Especially not you.”

Why would she be worried about him? “Me? Why me?” Oscar asked, not even trying to hide his confusion, “I’d imagine you all are probably a lot more tired than I am.”

Ruby frowned, “It’s… _kinda_ obvious Ironwood thinks you’re Oz.”

 _Oh_.

It was his turn to frown and look away. Right, he had been trying to forget that bit, not wanting to let himself dwell on it. The fact they lied to Ironwood had made it go away for a while, but now that Ruby brought it back up, he felt that burning knife twist in his gut again. The memory of that look in Ironwood’s eyes still made him nauseous, and he resisted the urge to shudder. Even if he _was_ Ozpin, he didn’t think he would’ve liked being looked at as if he was humanity’s last salvation. That he _wasn’t_ Ozpin only made it worse.

“Yeah…well…” he sighed and shrugged, trying to keep the dejection from his voice, “I’m used to that by now.” It _was_ sweet of her to be worried about it though. Admittedly, he was pleased to know that she was concerned about it after he had confided in her.

Oscar’s attention shot down to his hands when he felt her gently rest hers on his. Perplexed, he looked up at her and fought the embarrassment at the sudden contact. “You shouldn’t have to be,” Ruby said and smiled, “You’re Oscar Pine. You said you would make it your mission for us to be able to see you better, and I do. We all do.”

He flushed at the sudden recollection of his proclamation last night and laughed awkwardly. It sounded rather dorky having it said back to him. “Huh…yeah…I guess I did, didn’t I?” he asked rhetorically, “Glad my plan is working.” After a moment to calm down from the surprise, his smile felt easier, “Thank you.”

Ruby nodded and stepped away from him, “Do you feel better?” she asked, “I knew you weren’t exactly…comfortable in there.”

His eyes widened, “Was I _that_ obvious?”

“No, no, you were pretty convincing, Oscar…uh…sir,” she teased with a giggle. He rolled his eyes and tried not to be too embarrassed by it. That wasn’t one of his better moments, he knew it when he stumbled over it. After a moment, Ruby sobered, “But after Ironwood called you Oz, it was pretty easy to see…to me at least. Because I knew, I think.”

Because she knew what being called Oz would do to him. It was comforting to know. “You only confirmed what I already believed,” Oscar answered. She only confirmed that his belief in her was real and warranted. “But yeah, I do,” he nodded.

“Glad I could help!” she grinned.

“Yeah, thank you, Ruby,” he said again. Oscar glanced down the hallway and when he returned his attention to her, he caught her in the midst of another, large yawn, “Sorry! I didn’t mean to take up more of your time. Maybe we should both be getting to bed.”

“Yup,” she agreed, popping the end of the word again. Without warning, one more yawn escaped her. She covered her mouth with that one though, and looked at him sheepishly before they both laughed. “I guess I maybe _probably_ want that a lot right now,” she said and turned to start back towards her dorm room, “Good night, Oscar.”

He nodded at her and watched her go for a moment. After a moment, a thought struck him, and he frowned. “Oh, Ruby,” he called after her and waited until she turned around to say, “I _do_ trust you. I don’t want you thinking otherwise just because of tonight.”

He _did_ trust her. Even if he didn’t like what they were doing, even if he disagreed with it, he did still trust her. He knew Ruby was doing the best she could, he just couldn’t believe he hadn’t said it sooner. Though, it felt rather apt to reassure her now, after going to her like he just did.

Ruby stared at him for a moment before looking down to the ground. When she looked back up at him, she was smiling, though it was smaller, her relief was obvious, “Thank you, Oscar.”

Oscar nodded and turned away, pleased that he could offer perhaps a fraction of the comfort she had offered him the past few days, “Of course. Good night, Ruby.”


	3. ...And Somewhere in Between

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, sorry, something about third chapters and hell chapters. No excuse for how badly this got away from me.
> 
> Anyways, how we feelin' Oscar fans?

Atlas Academy never grew any less imposing.

It had been a few days since they had started living within the walls of the academy, and Oscar had _tried_ to get used to it. He wanted to be rid of the persistent unease he felt staying at the school, and had attempted just about everything he could think of to put an end to his nerves. He had taken every opportunity he could to explore and acquaint himself with the premise, both with the others and by himself, in the hopes that if he got used to the layout of the academy itself, then maybe the inherent anxiety he felt would diminish as well. He was pretty sure he had the entire floor map of the upper portion of Atlas Academy memorized, but that had yet to do anything to ease his discomfort, and he didn’t know what else to try.

If anything, Atlas Academy _was_ nice though. No matter his feelings towards the school, he could at least appreciate it for what it was. The actual school itself, where students would have been staying if classes were in session, made up the upper floors of the academy and was quite accommodating. The dorms were nice enough for students, the cafeteria was large and always stocked, and there were multiple courtyards and outdoor arenas that could be used to get some fresh air, however cold it might have been outside. He had even taken a quick look at some of the classrooms to find them stocked and supplied with some of the best training technology on Remnant…and that was without considering the massive training room everyone could use. He had spent a good bit of time with the teams in there, watching and monitoring them as they trained and getting a bit of his own in. It was nice actually, to get some practice that didn’t involve the risk of being eaten by Grimm or killed by other people. They hadn’t had that opportunity since Haven.

Still, that didn’t shake his unease either, just delayed it.

Without classes in session, there were very few students around, and without students, Atlas Academy was…quiet. It felt empty, especially when he was alone. RWBY and JNR were around often enough, but they also spent a lot of their days going through briefings and meetings to prepare for their new mission to the Schnee Dust mines. Oscar had sat in on a bunch of them, he knew the details of what their mission was going to be, and he had seen some of the suggested upgrades Pietro had on everyone’s weapons. But he would admit that after a while, it was hard to focus on the finer details of a mission he wasn’t going on.

It was a mission he _wanted_ to go on, but he had stopped protesting after a while. He had to agree, however reluctantly he did, that he would be more of a hindrance than a help to the rest of them. He had gotten better sure, but he was still only barely able to keep up with the student teams, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like with the Ace-Ops. They were the ones who pointed out as such, and while some of them could have been a bit _nicer_ about it, he couldn’t disagree. Thus, it became a lot harder to focus on the finer details when he realized the finer details didn’t apply to him.

And when he couldn’t focus on the mission, Oscar found his mind started to wander.

Not that that was any different than what he was doing now, taking a lap around the halls of the dorm floor while Teams RWBY and JNR made their final preparations before heading out…but at least when he was alone with his thoughts outside of those meetings, he could move and walk around.

Being alone with his thoughts in the empty halls though only reminded him how hard he had been trying to push his unease and misgivings to the side since they got settled. He knew there wasn’t anything he could actively _do_ with those feelings at the moment, they all agreed to bide their time for a while, but he _really_ wanted to get rid of them entirely. Talking to Ruby after they first met with Ironwood had helped _some_ , and he meant what he told her. He did trust her. But as the days wore on, he could feel the truth about their lie fraying his nerves. And with each new piece of information about their goals, about Ironwood, about the academy or the kingdom itself, he felt it wearing him down even more.

Being with the others usually helped, Oscar could usually successfully push those thoughts aside. It was comforting to be with friends, and whether it was training or simply hanging out, he was usually preoccupied enough that his mind wasn’t left to wander. But when he was alone, he was forced to acknowledge the air felt thicker. He had to acknowledge the air had felt thicker since they had entered the kingdom’s territory, and it sometimes felt like there was too much hanging over them—hanging over _him_ —that was just waiting to drop at any moment.

Oscar had to acknowledge his discomfort wasn’t towards staying at Atlas Academy, it never had been.

He sighed, coming to a halt in front of one of the large windows in the hall and peering out. On this side of the school, he could see the southern part of Mantle peeking out from under Atlas, and he felt his mouth go dry. Just by word of mouth and what news he could piece together, the past few days had been rather elucidating regarding the states of the cities. Atlas proper seemed fine enough, suffering some perhaps from the embargo and closed borders. He didn’t want to downplay it necessarily, but it was mostly on the business side of things that could be made up with local consumers or once the general decided to lift his restrictions.

Mantle though…Mantle needed _help_ , not the Atlesian military. He understood they were at a higher risk of Grimm attacks, and a higher soldier presence for that was understandable. But what was currently in Mantle was too much, and it wasn’t _only_ targeting Grimm. Ironwood wanted to keep Mantle just as safe as Atlas if he could, Oscar believed as much. It wasn’t done with malicious intent, the general wanted to keep things as peaceful and calm as he could…this just wasn’t the way to do it. Soldiers and forced policies were only going to breed fear and resentment. Ultimately, fear and resentment were only going to lead to the very thing Ironwood was trying to prevent. And none of _that_ took into account the new, overarching question casting a shadow over the kingdom now.

What was out there to warrant this kind of reaction?

Another heavy sigh escaped him, and he leaned against the windowsill. His eyes glanced over the skyscrapers of Atlas as they made their way back to Mantle. He traced the outline of the city’s southern border before his gaze went beyond, outwards towards the stretching tundra of Solitas and whatever was beyond. No, no “whatever,” he _knew_ what was beyond, but the general populace didn’t. No one else would be able to comprehend the horror that was out there or that Ironwood’s reaction, in some regard, was warranted. Whether he agreed with it or not, Oscar at least understood why the general was taking the precautions that he was. Most of the people who were growing restless did not, and that was slowly pushing a kingdom that was already teetering over the edge. And he knew Ironwood was working on telling them, he wanted to tell everyone what was happening and what was coming…but even _that_ was complicated now.

How did they tell Ironwood that Salem couldn’t be destroyed when it was the one thing he was counting on? When his last bit of hope was in his plan to tell the world and unite everyone against her? How did they tell him when they had seen what sort of reaction he had a predisposition towards? When they knew he looked for control and order that, even when it was done with the best of interests, could potentially only make things worse? How could they tell Ironwood if they didn’t know whether it would break the man or not?

_You have to tell Ironwood._

“I get it now,” Oscar muttered. He closed his eyes and shifted to lean against the wall, “I know I said I understood why you made the choices you did. And I _did_ …but I _get_ it now.”

Navigating situations like this was _difficult_. He understood why Ozpin didn’t tell them everything just like he understood why Ruby didn’t want to tell Ironwood everything. Oscar himself felt nauseous at the thought of explaining the _real_ situation to the general and how he might react. In part because Oscar couldn’t calculate how _anyone_ would react. Even when he told Team RWBY Jinn’s name, he didn’t know for sure how they would react to what they were about to see. He didn’t even know how _he_ would react to what he was about to learn. He just knew telling the truth was the right thing to do, and he had to hope he would land on his feet after his leap of faith.

It happened once, could it happen again?

Because no matter what, however Ironwood took it, Oscar knew it wasn’t going to be good. No sane person would take that news well, and the kingdom was already inching closer to succumbing to martial law. _Ironwood_ was already teetering on that edge, he was already obviously at his wit’s end over what to do and his decisions weren’t helping to keep his people from the tipping point. There were thousands of reasons not to tell Ironwood his plans for Amity Colosseum and telling all of Remnant about Salem weren’t ideal because Salem couldn’t be destroyed; all of them led back to the fact that information could easily push _everything_ over the edge with disastrous results.

_You **have** to tell him._

But…that didn’t mean they should hide from it either. Despite his misgivings about the general, despite what he was seeing in Atlas and in Mantle, despite whatever Ruby or anyone else might say or think, Oscar knew they had to tell him. He knew he specifically couldn’t keep expecting Ironwood to fight for a cause he didn’t know the whole truth over. It wasn’t fair to expect that of anyone, and it wasn’t fair to deny the general the same chance he gave to himself and everyone else.

Oscar wanted to believe in Ironwood, he truly did. And he _did_ believe in Ironwood enough, he could see the man wasn’t a lost cause mad with power, as some of his actions may have suggested. It didn’t matter if Oscar agreed or not, everything Ironwood had done up to this point in Atlas had a founded reason for it. He genuinely cared about his people _and_ all of Remnant, he wouldn’t be working as hard as he was to build and launch a communications tower that could reconnect the world if he didn’t. He was just at the end of his rope, he didn’t know who to trust, and…and he was scared. Just like they all were.

But none of that meant they should continue lying to him.

_“How did you do it?”_ Oscar asked, fully expecting the silence that followed. He opened his eyes again to gaze once more out over the kingdom and tundra surrounding it. If he were being honest, he knew he was trying to understand and rationalize everything within himself more than he was trying to have a conversation with Ozpin. As much as he had grown used to having a voice in his head after Oz reincarnated in him, he had been growing just as used to the silence again too. Save for that one instance with the airship, it didn’t matter how hard he tried, conversations weren’t going to happen. At this point, it was just talking and trying to iron out his own thoughts and feelings.

_“How did you lie to them for so long without feeling awful over it? **Did** you feel awful over it?”_ He wasn’t trying to be meanspirited, though he supposed it could come across that way. Because Oscar _did_ feel awful over it. When he wasn’t trying to navigate the moral complexities of the decisions they all had ahead of them, he knew the other major thing driving him to tell Ironwood was the guilt. The guilt of lying to him and the guilt of letting him go forth with his plan _knowing_ it had a high chance of ending in a catastrophe.

None of this was right.

But then, he also already knew the answer to his question. Ozpin had felt awful over it too. The underlying guilt he felt towards meeting Team RWBY and Team JNR in Mistral when Oz saw they were still moving forward was because of the lying. The sadness he felt when Oz spoke about how many people had come before Leo was from personal experience, both caused by those who knew the truth from the start and turned their backs on him _and_ those who learned he was lying and did the same. Oscar knew the slew of emotions he felt when he took control and forced Jinn’s name out of his mouth were for much the same reasons.

Those emotions had never been his own, they were always Ozpin’s leaking over. Oz’s guilt about having lied, Oz’s sadness regarding where past actions led, Oz’s fear at being exposed, and a veiled sense of sympathy and sadness over what was to come for Oscar.

Oscar grumbled and sighed, pushing himself off the wall and away from the windowsill. He started back on his final leg of his route towards the dorms, suddenly feeling the need to move again. Suddenly feeling the need to not stare out at the known unknown anymore. He knew that Ozpin never took pleasure in lying, in sending people off to fight a war that had no conclusion…in sending people off to _die_. Oz just felt he was out of options, and he felt what hope he could spare would be worth it in the end.

And then his next reincarnation came along and decided that shouldn’t be the case.

Oscar understood what hope could do. He knew it was a worthy ideal to uphold and try to inspire in people. But what good was hope built on a false pretense? What good was hope built on a _lie_? It would only come crashing down in the end, the truth had a funny way of creeping out like that. Then what? What did you do when the truth came out and ruined everything you had attempted to build? Besides pray that the people who learned the truth were resilient enough to keep going despite it. Giving them a sense of hope was a worthwhile goal, but what was the cost when it all inevitably came crashing down? He had seen enough of Oz’s past memories to know the lies costed too high a price in the end.

And honestly, Oscar wasn’t positive it was all about fostering hope, anyways. He had to wonder how much of the lies were born from fear. Specifically, Oz’s fear of what came next after people found out. It was a fear bred from the experience of telling the truth to countless others, Oscar could give it that. That was the other half of those fleeting memories he had seen when he wrestled out Jinn’s name. There were reasons to be wary with the truth, he understood that. He was living that _now_. But telling no one, _trusting_ no one was just as dangerous as being too open with the truth, he believed that too.

Lying only made everything seem that much more hopeless, and that wasn’t a path Oscar wanted to go down.

_“What we’re doing isn’t a hopeless endeavor.”_ He came to that conclusion a couple nights ago in Ironwood’s office. Or, he came to realize it then, anyways. It was still worthwhile to _try_ , that’s what everyone else had decided when they continued on with their mission to get the Lamp to Atlas. That was what Oscar agreed with, it was what he _wanted_ them to do. The fact this war never being about defeating Salem because it _couldn’t_ ever be about defeating Salem was a dark realization to come to, but it was not hopeless. It wasn’t pointless.

It was about trying to keep her from winning. It was about protecting humanity as best they could from her. Sure, that was a tiring goal with no end in sight. There was no conceivable end at all if Salem couldn’t be destroyed. And sure, that was disheartening when he first learned about it. None of them had signed up for an endless war of this magnitude, especially not him. But the more he thought about it, the more time they spent pursuing it and the more he saw everyone else still trying to do the right thing—the more time he spent trying to do the right thing himself—the more he found their new goal to be even _more_ worthwhile.

The stories he grew up on as a kid, the stories _everyone_ grew up on as kids, were all about heroes fighting monsters. There were a number of different heroes, from the plucky kid in over his head to the wise old man giving power to the Maidens, and there were all different types of monsters, Grimm and human alike. The one thing that tied them all together was the tenacity of those heroes. All of them stood up and stared into the unknown, continuing to fight not knowing if there was an end in sight or what that end could even be, and remaining standing through the adversity to protect the ones they cared about. Those stories were about bravery and kindness, about holding out hope in the face of evil.

The line between the stuff of legends and the stuff of reality was blurred, he had learned that rather quickly. Oscar didn’t want to romanticize the situation they were in, it certainly didn’t _feel_ like a fairytale they were now living, despite their situation’s likeness to many. But if he were being honest, after thinking about it, now after _living_ through it in some regards, this was what he had wished for on his farm in Mistral. All he wanted to know was if it came to it if he could stand up in the face of fear and hold onto hope, like all of those heroes in all of those stories. This was one hell of a way to find out, but he acknowledged he was fast approaching an answer to his question one way or another.

It wasn’t a hopeless wish though. The circumstances weren’t what he or anyone else wanted…but when had what he wanted been taken into consideration? This wasn’t the way he wanted to find these sorts of things out about himself, but he would take what he could get. He wouldn’t deny that despite starting out an unwilling participant, despite not being that strong at fighting yet and despite still being young and uncertain and scared, Oscar rather liked who he saw staring down the face of his adversity. And he liked who he saw himself staring down the face of adversity with. The whole group could still do good in this kind of situation. They would still help, they would still protect. There was still _hope_ , even if it was different, and there were still worthwhile goals to strive for. And none of it was born on false pretenses. It wasn’t a hope people would discover to be a lie and break even more over. It was a shock to come to, but it was eventually something people could rally around.

It was something he and his friends _did_ rally around, and were still trying to every day.

“This isn’t pointless,” he murmured aloud. Saying it aloud helped make it feel more real, saying it aloud set something in him at ease. This _wasn’t_ pointless. _“A lot of others believe that too.”_ They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t. _“Many may not have…many **did** not…but many still **do**. And so long as the ones that do believe it are still here, all’s not lost.”_ Hope couldn’t be lost if people still believed in what they were doing. _“I do trust in that.”_

It was a comforting sentiment at least. The only problem it currently came back to, because it _always_ cycled back, was which side Ironwood would fall on. Would he still believe there was hope, that everything they were striving for _wasn’t_ pointless? Or would the general fall to despair?

Oscar paused and sighed, having reached the dorms once again. The only question left was what kind of person Ironwood would be after the reveal. He hoped it would be the former, he hoped Ironwood would be a good man, like he knew everyone else would be. He hoped Ironwood would be a man who could see reason, someone who would continue his pursuit to protect the people of Atlas and all of Remnant. He hoped they would find another ally.

Oscar _knew_ he had to expect the worst.

They still had to tell Ironwood, that wouldn’t stop coming back to the forefront of his mind, but Oscar knew no matter how hard he wanted to believe Ironwood would come out on the right side after they told him, they had to be prepared for the worst. No matter how much he wanted to hope, he wasn’t blind to the signs around him. He knew by the state of the cities, he knew by Ironwood’s plan and willingness to do whatever it took and sacrifice whatever necessary to defeat Salem, and he knew by the quiet, subtle resignation he felt seeping into his mind the night they entered Atlas. The resignation that wasn’t _his_ , the resignation that Oscar could only assume was coming from a man who knew James Ironwood a lot better than he did.

He almost wished the possibility of disaster dissuaded him from feeling the need to tell Ironwood the truth, but it didn’t. It didn’t negate the fact that Ironwood still had a right to know, it didn’t stop him from knowing Ironwood deserved to know the truth of what he was fighting against and it didn’t stop him from knowing Oscar didn’t want to go down the same path as Oz. The only thing it did was make him fret more over it and try to figure out _how_ to do it. If nothing else, he had learned from how he handled Jinn that he could do things better than that. He could take his time with this, he didn’t need to dive headfirst into it and hope beyond hope that everything would be alright in the end. There _had_ to be a way to tell Ironwood and avoid sending Atlas over the edge…

Oscar was only pulled from his thoughts when he heard quiet muttering coming from the dorm room he was approaching, and he felt himself slowing to a stop. Maybe that was for the best, at this rate if he kept going he was bound to wear a rut into the floors…let alone his brain. He _was_ a little surprised to hear anyone though, he had been pretty sure everyone was off to the Dust mines by now. As he approached Team RWBY’s room though, he saw said team’s leader getting the last of her stuff together and talking about something quietly to herself.

He watched her for a few moments, debating if he should speak up or continue walking. He _had_ wanted to say goodbye to someone at least before they all left so he could tell them to pass on his well wishes regarding the mission, but honestly now the only reason he wanted to see anyone at the moment was to give his own mind a break. Ruby was the only one he had spoken to about anything at length though, and the longer he watched her, the harder it was to deny his urge to talk to her about Ironwood again. She _had_ eased him some a few nights ago, it was possible that talking to her again and asking her _when_ she planned on telling Ironwood would calm at least some of the troubled thoughts he had.

“Hey…Ruby?”

“Hi Oscar!” As she turned to smile at him, Oscar felt his resolve in that decision turn to ash. She looked different from a few nights ago, when they were all exhausted and ready for the day to be over. She looked less lost, or…no…rather, she looked happier, probably over the chance to finally be going out on a mission. Most likely this was the first time in a while she felt like she was doing something she was used to, a simple mission that would help people as a whole instead of navigating the complexities of the truth and morality behind their ultimate goals.

As much as he wanted to talk to her, as much as he wanted to ease his mind of his own worries, Oscar very suddenly did not want to take this from her.

“What’s up?” Ruby asked and tilted her head, much like a couple nights ago when she knew something was wrong.

“I…ah…nothing really,” he smiled and shrugged, trying to shake off all the thoughts he had a moment ago. Truly, aside from his own discomfort, there were no pressing reasons those questions couldn’t wait until after the mission was over. “I just wanted to say goodbye to _someone_ at least before you all left,” he shrugged again and glanced towards his own room with JNR. That much had been true at one point. “Everyone else seems to have left before I could, though.”

“Yeah, I think everyone is pretty excited to be going on missions again,” she agreed and went back to sorting through her new gear, “I know I am. It’s nice to go do something normal for once instead of…well…you know, everything else we’ve been doing the past couple of weeks.”

“I can imagine,” he said, leaving it at that. He couldn’t really imagine, he understood what she meant in an abstract sense, but that was it. His introduction to “everything else” was having a man reincarnated into his head and then saving a Huntsman academy from an immortal evil and treacherous headmaster. His normal before everything of the past few months was doing farm work and…well, there was no going back to that now. It was kind of funny how much he missed it when, only a couple months ago, he was dreading every chore he had to do and wishing to go on to bigger and better things. Oscar held back a sigh as he glanced down at himself, because now here he was with bigger and better things. It was an ironic reminder to never wish simplicity away. He wasn’t sure if he would go back if he could, but not having the choice didn’t feel great either.

At the very least, he missed the weight of the world not being on his shoulders.

Oscar forced his attention away from those thoughts and looked back to Ruby, watching silently as she unpacked her new clothes. They seemed nice, like a much-needed update after she trekked through Anima to get to Mistral and then through the mountains to get to Argus. Crescent Rose sat behind her suitcase, and though it was folded up, he knew it had received much of the same treatment. Ruby was rightfully excited by the new gear, that much was obvious, but there was something else there too. Something in the way her fingers worked at the end of her new cloak, something in the way her silver eyes flitted over and catalogued every new addition to her stuff, that made him realize there was a lot of thought going into it. A lot of underlying worry, and that was the reason he could say she looked happier to be going on a mission, but didn’t look any less exhausted than a few nights prior.

He sighed, “It’s not quite the same though, is it?”

“Huh?” she asked and stopped, setting her new cloak down to look at him. Her eyes turned to the ceiling for a moment as she thought, before nodding, “Well…yeah, I guess. Ironwood and the Ace-Ops have a different way of running things than…well…” she trailed off and looked at him.

They had all been students under Ozpin first, and he didn’t need the fleeting memories of how Oz taught to know that he would’ve been _vastly_ different than Ironwood. That also wasn’t what he meant by the question he asked _at all_ but…he wouldn’t push. Even if he could assume she was having the same thoughts as he was, that she was still mulling over her decision and that they both hadn’t been able to put it down since they had gotten to Atlas, he still didn’t want to _completely_ ruin this for her. “Yeah…I guess all of the headmasters would have a different way to approach students and missions,” Oscar agreed, “…Is that good or bad?”

“Neither really,” Ruby shrugged and picked the cloak back up. He noticed she started running her fingers over the edges again, “It’s just different.” She paused and her eyes trailed over all that was in front of her with a thoughtful glint, “It is nice of the general to do all of this for us though. He isn’t…bad.”

It was a loaded statement. Oscar frowned and looked down at his shoes as she spoke. No…no Ironwood wasn’t _bad_ per se he was just…misguided. He only looked up again when he felt Ruby’s gaze on him. He met her eyes to find she was looking at him as if waiting for an answer to a question she hadn’t asked. It was the same question he had been asking himself for days. “No…he’s not,” he agreed and shook his head to accentuate the point, “He’s trying his best. Just how he’s doing it isn’t…great.”

“Yeah,” she sighed and turned back to her new gear again.

The silence that surrounded them was about as thick as the air felt in all of Atlas. Well, there was no way of avoiding it now, now was there? Oscar sighed again and shifted on his feet, trying to figure out how to phrase everything else he couldn’t get off his mind for the past several days. “Just because we don’t agree with how he’s doing it doesn’t mean it isn’t coming from a place of good will,” he added after several moments.

“Yeah…” she muttered. It was apparent she was only half-listening, lost somewhere in her own thoughts on the matter.

He blew out his breath and shuffled again. “Ruby?” he asked and waited until he had her full attention before continuing, “I know we talked about this already but…we _are_ going to tell him, right?”

“Of course!” she exclaimed with a nod.

“When?” he asked, tentative at the response.

There was a pregnant pause as she thought. Finally, she frowned and shook her head, “I dunno. With the mission and everything going on I haven’t really had much time to think about it—” Oscar didn’t know if he believed that, given how she appeared now. If anything, she looked like she had been doing the same as him, thinking about it too much and desperately trying not to. “—It’s nice that the general is giving us all this too, but we haven’t had much time with him either. We’ve almost always been with Dr. Polendina or the Ace-Ops. I know I should be thinking about it more but—” 

“Okay…” he stopped her, holding up his hands as a sign she didn’t need to explain everything, “Okay.” He understood, he really did. It was a lot to consider and that was without everything else that had been going on for them the past couple of days. He didn’t have an answer yet either, he really wasn’t trying to blame her, he just wanted to know if she had any ideas about it. It was alright that she didn’t. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to nag about it but…” he trailed off and gave a weak shrug, “I can’t really shake the fact that he still had a right to know.”

He couldn’t shake the fact they were doing what Oz had done, and he couldn’t shake the fact that it wasn’t a path he wanted to go down.

Ruby didn’t say anything, but looked away from him with a quiet nod. Oscar heaved another breath and looked around the room, trying to find something to switch the conversation to before another unbearably awkward and undeniably charged silence followed suit. After a few moments, his eyes landed on the soft blue glow coming from the bed, and he was reminded that the Relic was another topic they had to consider. In the midst of everything, the Lamp had become an afterthought to him now that it was in Atlas. Ironwood had given it back to them as a sign of his own trust and good faith and Ruby had held onto it since. That was…a lot in its own right, but it was safe within the school walls and that was all that really mattered. There was no point in her bringing it out onto a battlefield anymore though, not when she didn’t have to.

“So uh…what are you going to do with that?” he asked, pointing at the Lamp.

She followed his finger, and picked it up, “Oh! Right…”

He had a few ideas regarding what to do with it, the most prominent one being to give it back to Ironwood. The general gave it back to them as a sign of good faith, but their initial reason for coming to Atlas in the first place was to secure the Lamp inside the vault with the Staff. That way it would be safe at least, or safer in any case. It was safe in the academy too, but there really wasn’t any reason it needed to still be out in the open. He doubted anyone else had anything left to ask for Jinn’s final question and, well, Ironwood didn’t even know Jinn still had one question left. If they had the Winter Maiden, there was objectively no harm in sealing it away and keeping it even further from Salem’s reach. And if… _when_ they told Ironwood the truth, they could mitigate it then. It was unlikely he would have any questions the group didn’t already have an answer for anyways.

“We could give—”

“Er, probably shouldn’t keep running around with an ancient Relic on a keychain, you know?” Ruby cut him off and held the Lamp out to him before he could say anything else.

Oscar blinked, staring at it for a second. She wanted _him_ to take it? That was…well, it was an option, he supposed. It wasn’t like he was going to be leaving the academy grounds anytime soon, much less the city. It _would_ be safe with him, but it would still be _safer_ behind the door of a vault only one person could open. That was their whole point for being here. “But…”

“I know you’ll keep it safe up in Atlas,” Ruby smiled at him.

In part, it was a sign of trust from her, he understood that. After everything he had been through with the group, she wanted to assure him that she trusted him, that she knew he could be trusted with things and was a valuable member of the group. He _appreciated_ it for what it was, but that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t something he was even concerned with anymore, he knew where he stood with everyone else. He just wanted to do what was best to keep the Relic safe, and he was pretty sure that was still locking it in the Staff’s vault.

The underlying, darker implication Oscar had to also acknowledge was this was her way of saying she still didn’t trust Ironwood. Not fully, at least. And he understood _that_ too, but the Relic and the truth were two different things. The Relic was something they had to protect, and it was something he wanted to put in the best situation possible. That was sealing it away. The truth…trusting Ironwood was another matter. Trusting Ironwood was the dilemma that wouldn’t let him rest. “Ruby, hiding things from Ironwood…” he paused, watching her. She immediately frowned and turned her eyes to the Lamp, refusing to meet his gaze. He sighed, “…Doesn’t that feel like what Ozpin did to _us_?”

He didn’t know where he wanted to go with that, it just sort of came out. He knew he asked once already and got a non-answer from her a few nights ago, but now that they wound up at the exact same spot again, he felt himself hoping for a real answer this time. Wasn’t it the same? Or did she see it differently? He didn’t know what answer he wanted her to give, much less what answer he was expecting from her, he just wanted _something_. Because to him, they were starting down the same path Oz had taken by not telling Ironwood the truth he had a right to.

And they knew better than that, they all did.

Ruby’s frown grew, and she gently let go of the Lamp as he moved to take it. “Maybe it is,” she muttered in agreement. After a moment, her shoulders sagged and she blew out a breath. She finally met his gaze, and her inner conflict was easy to see reflected in her eyes, “Oscar…do you think what Ozpin did was wrong?”

“I…uh…” Oscar stammered, caught off guard by the question. That was something he had been asking himself for a while now, practically since Oz had locked himself away after Jinn’s vision. It had only been amplified since their run-in with Ironwood. “I…understand why Ozpin did what he did,” he answered after some thought. Now it was his turn to give a non-answer because he still wasn’t very sure of what his answer actually was. He still hadn’t decided if Ozpin was wrong, or if he was wrong in revealing the truth. He didn’t even know if there _was_ a “wrong” at this point or if it was just differences in opinions— _philosophies_ —between similar souls that weren’t the same. Similar souls who prioritized different things.

“Yeah but do you think what he did was _wrong_?” Ruby pressed.

He closed his eyes with a sigh. Was what Oz did wrong? When Oscar took control of himself in the mountains and uttered Jinn’s name, he believed what Oz was doing was wrong. Even as he had grown sympathetic towards the man and the choices he made, even when he wished he could go back and do everything differently to spare Oz, himself, and everyone else that pain, Oscar had still yet to regret that decision. He had expected to regret it at some point, but that moment had yet to come, and that provided the only answer he needed.

“I don’t know if anyone can really be ‘wrong’ in this,” he admitted finally, “I think Oz did what he thought was best…or what he thought was necessary through experience,” he said, pausing to eye her, “It sounds like maybe you think the same?”

“I don’t know…maybe? I guess?” Ruby shrugged, her answer coming on a heavy sigh. She sounded defeated.

He wasn’t that surprised. Being put in the same situation was bound to generate empathy, and for a while he expected Ruby would be the first one to come back around to Oz. She didn’t outwardly take the truth nearly as hard as the others to start with, and she had been the only one to not shun _him_ for Oz’s mistakes.

“It’s…hard,” Oscar agreed. He rolled the Lamp in between his hands, watching it as he debated his next words, “But I wouldn’t have done what I did if I didn’t think he was wrong. So yes, I understand why, but I think what he did was wrong,” he answered and looked back up at her, “I think he was wrong to hide the truth from everyone, _especially_ the people he was expecting to help protect Remnant.”

“Even after we…kinda sorta did exactly as he feared?” she asked and grimaced, “Even when we continued it with you?”

He frowned. Would it always come back to that? Even after it was obvious the air had cleared? He really just wanted to move on from those couple of days, they weren’t indicative of much. The ways everyone reacted weren’t great and he didn’t exactly look upon it fondly, but where they were _now_ spoke much more about who they all were as people than those few days it took to process the world-shattering information they received.

“At first you might’ve,” he conceded. He paused to shrink the Lamp and clip it on his belt, the best sign he could give that he accepted her new…apology? Peace treaty? Sign of good faith? He accepted and understood all she was implying by giving him the Lamp. After he was sure the Relic was secure, he shot her a small smile, “But then you all did what I trusted you’d do: keep trying anyways.”

Ruby relaxed a little, but her tension was still evident in the way her shoulders still sagged and in the way she looked at him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be able to get rid of it all. “I’m glad to hear that, but…” she trailed off and frowned, “Do you think we can trust _everyone_ to do the same?”

Oscar sighed and turned his eyes to the wall. He understood what, or _who_ rather, she was really implying with her question. “No…no obviously you can’t trust everyone to do the right thing,” he answered honestly. They knew that much, they had _experienced_ that much. Ruby had heard what Oz had said about other people coming before Lionheart. Oscar had seen their faces and snippets of their betrayals. They all had seen what happened at Haven.

“But you can’t live in fear of some and keep it from all,” he added after some consideration, “Maybe over time it gets easier to judge who deserves to know the truth and who doesn’t, I don’t know. Even that doesn’t sound like a trail I want to go down though.”

That still returned them right back to what Oz did.

Ruby grumbled something under her breath and shook her head, “Do you think we should trust Ironwood to do the same as we did?” she asked finally.

There was what everything was really about. “I…don’t know,” he admitted, “I’ve been asking myself the same thing for the past several days.” Oscar really wanted to believe in the general, but with everything around him he couldn’t come to that conclusion as readily as he would’ve liked. “But, I don’t think it’s fair to not at least give him the chance to prove himself, you know?” he said.

Oscar watched her shuffle and pick at her sleeve, deep in thought. He felt his desire to not steal away all of her excitement about the mission ahead of her flare in his chest again, and after a moment added, “It also doesn’t have to be decided _immediately_. It can wait until you guys are back from the mines, at least.”

“Yeah…yeah I guess you’re right,” she nodded, at least considering what he had just said. Even _if_ they came to an answer right now, nothing would’ve been able to happen until they were back anyways. After a moment, Ruby brightened a little and took a step back towards her equipment, “Thanks, Oscar. For taking the Relic and for…that,” she gestured at the space between them to indicate the conversation.

He nodded at her with a small smile and glanced down at the Relic on his belt. He only looked back up again when he felt her still staring at him, her silver eyes grown contemplative. Oscar shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, “What?”

“Nothing…nothing,” she waved her hand, “Just, for being similar souls…you are different to Ozpin. Maybe that’s why you seem way too old to be just a kid.”

“Don’t we all seem too old to be just kids at this point?” he asked with a chuckle, a touch sardonic. Maybe he was the most obvious of the bunch due to his extenuating circumstances, but after everything they had been through, it was sometimes hard to believe the rest of them were still just kids too. After a moment of silence, he forced himself to recognize the second part of her statement with a tentative question of his own, “Is that good or bad?”

“Good, I think,” she smiled, “But also maybe just different.”

He could accept different, but he _liked_ good. Oscar smiled and nodded at her again, “Well, thanks.” It was a thought that had been growing on him of late…similar souls, but not the same. Different enough that others could see him for who he— _Oscar_ —was now, just like he wanted. It actually felt pretty nice to have that recognized. His eyes trailed down to the Lamp in thought as his hand brushed over the outer edge before snapping back to Ruby when he heard the sound of her suitcase shutting. She was standing somewhat awkwardly next to her new gear.

Oh…right.

“I should…probably let you get back to that, shouldn’t I?” he asked and gestured to her things, “You guys are leaving soon, right?”

“Heh…yeah,” she agreed. Her eyes flicked between her equipment and him a couple times before she added, “I’m sorry you’re not coming with us.”

“It’s alright,” he said quickly and waved her off. As much as he initially wanted to go with them and get more experience, he knew why he wasn’t, and he really didn’t want to dwell on it. It wasn’t the best of feelings to be considered at best a hindrance and at worst a liability…even if it might’ve been true. Besides, for better or for worse he was tasked with something new and equally as important now. “Someone’s gotta take care of the Relic, right?” he asked rhetorically and patted the Lamp. His smile softened as he added, “Just be safe out there, okay?”

“Of course!” Ruby beamed at him, “As I said, this seems pretty easy and straightforward compared to…everything else we’ve been doing the past few weeks.”

“Well then, I’ll look forward to everyone’s grand return,” Oscar chuckled and turned away with a small wave. After a moment, he paused and glanced back, “Oh, and Ruby?” he asked and smiled when she turned to him, “Good luck too.”

She smiled back at him and nodded, some of that confidence he was so used to seeing on her returning, “Thanks, Oscar.”

He turned and left the doorway without another word, only stopping when he got back to his room. Oscar stared at the entrance of the dorm room for a good minute in debate before deciding to turn around and start another lap around the floor. He felt _better_ , but still not great, and he was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he probably wouldn’t feel great again until they sat down and told Ironwood the truth. He wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything else until everyone got back, so he didn’t see the point in trying to do something to distract himself. Even though the hallways were large and lonely, walking around still seemed a lot better than sitting with his thoughts alone in bed.

Talking with Ruby again helped ease him some, just like it had a few nights ago. It assuaged some uncertainties he had about the road they were traveling down and some of the questions he had about himself and Oz. Ruby saw it too at least, both that what they were doing wasn’t dissimilar to what Oz did and that they were similar souls but not he same. Not to mention she let him voice some of his opinions and thoughts regarding…well… _everything_ surrounding Oz, some of which he didn’t even realize he was holding on that tightly to. She agreed that maybe Oz wasn’t wrong, and she agreed that maybe he and Oz weren’t the same. He _did_ feel pretty great about that, at least.

But it still didn’t wipe away the fact they were lying to Ironwood, and it still didn’t negate the fact that they needed to tell him the truth even though there was good reason not to do so. Oscar appreciated it appeared he and Ruby were still on the same page, and he appreciated that she wasn’t backing out of her plans to tell the general entirely. But even if they agreed to tell Ironwood, and even when they did tell him, there was still a lot of concern that it could go wrong. Ironwood could take the wrong steps, as he was now, and everything would only get worse.

It didn’t _have_ to go that way; Oscar _wanted_ to believe in Ironwood. He wanted to believe there was a way to tell the truth that mitigated the risk and he wanted to believe the general would not fold under the pressure. But he also had to acknowledge he had already gotten lucky once with the truth and he couldn’t count on that again. They had the time, thus they needed a plan of what to do in the face of the worst possible outcome.

Oscar sighed and stopped in front of another window, his attention caught by the sight of two airships taking off from the academy. He watched as they started heading for the tundra, undoubtedly those were the teams and the Ace-Ops headed towards the Schnee Dust mines. He wouldn’t deny the small sense of longing he felt towards the ships hurtling away from the school. He said he was fine with it, he had just reassured Ruby he was fine and understood why he had to stay back, and he _was_ …but there wasn’t a lot he wouldn’t give to go with them. If only to get a reprieve from the academy and his own, relentless thoughts.

It felt weird being stationary again. After the several Grimm encounters over the past few weeks and their more recent run in with Cordovin at Argus, it was a little disheartening to be left behind. He had grown since they first met him and he wanted to prove that, but he wasn’t at the level of the teams or the Ace-Ops. It was strange that after surviving this long, after surviving things potentially worse than what they were going to encounter in the mines, and after surviving much of them _without_ the help of Ozpin, he had to acknowledge that he wasn’t good enough to be in the field…not yet anyways.

He felt the Lamp brush against his leg as he shifted, and he blew out a breath, taking comfort in it. At least he knew he wasn’t being forgotten, and it wasn’t anything against him per se. It was enough to quiet the small voice in the back of his mind relentlessly repeating to him that he wasn’t good enough. He had told Ruby that he wasn’t worried about his place with the group anymore too, and he _had_ meant that as well. He knew he was part of the team, but just because he logically knew there was nothing to worry about didn’t mean the anxiety wouldn’t creep up on him from time to time. He didn’t really expect the Lamp to be a help in that regard, and he still thought it would be better if it was sealed away, but he would take what comfort he could from it. It was a sign that he still had an important task.

Besides, if his whirring thoughts were anything to go off of, _someone_ had to tackle the moral complexities of all that lie ahead of them. Why not let it be the kid who was destined to be the next reincarnation of an ancient warrior spirit meant to save the world and who caused half the issues in the first place?

Oscar snorted at himself and leaned forward, pressing his head against the glass. It was a shame that for all his thinking on the matter, and it was _a lot_ of thinking at that, he wasn’t any closer to a definitive answer besides them needing to tell Ironwood the truth. He couldn’t even figure out where to _begin_. All he really kept coming back to was that there had to be some way to tell the truth that would mitigate the risks. If he could figure that out, something he clearly failed at the first time he pulled a stunt like this, he’d feel a lot better about…well, probably everything.

**_Thump. Thump. Thump._ **

He closed his eyes as a set of unmistakably heavy footsteps grew louder as they started approaching him from the opposite end of the hall. He blew out a slow, quiet breath through his nose to keep from groaning. Oscar acknowledged that being with other people helped keep him from overthinking, and that much was true, but _this_ company wasn’t exactly what he wanted. It was hard to ignore your problems when the root cause of most of them was approaching you.

He briefly debated continuing his walk altogether and pretending like he didn’t hear the general coming towards him, but ultimately decided to stay rooted in his spot. For one, he expected it was too late now to run without seeming suspicious. And for two, maybe this was _necessary_. Ruby had said she and the others hadn’t had much time to spend with Ironwood. He _probably_ shouldn’t squander his chance to talk with Ironwood, no matter how much he might have wanted to.

“Do you wish to go with them?”

The baritone voice behind him didn’t surprise him as much as the question did. Oscar felt apprehension prick at his skin. Much like with Ruby, he already knew speaking with the general wasn’t going to do anything for his racing mind. Actually, it was most likely going to be _worse_ , but even if he did want to go back on his decision, it didn’t matter now. Running away after being greeted would be at best odd, and at worst outright rude.

He turned around to see Ironwood looking at him—no, not at him, _past_ him at the ships quickly becoming specks in the distance. After a moment, his blue eyes turned to Oscar proper and he smiled a little, “Admittedly, I was surprised you didn’t put up that much of a fight to be included on the mission as well.”

Honestly, Oscar was quickly growing to dislike this topic almost as much as what happened in Argus. Just about every member on the teams apologized for not bringing him along, Ruby had said it again, and now here Ironwood was mentioning it as well. He _understood_ why he shouldn’t go out into the cold of Solitas and attempt to fight Grimm when he was still so new to it all. He fully accepted their reasonings, but continually rehashing the topic was tiring when it brought the constant reminder of his own inadequacies.

“Your own men said it would be unwise,” he shrugged. More or less anyways, the Ace-Ops had their own reasons for not wanting and even less experienced kid coming along, and he respected that even if he was said kid. Some of them just had better tact in explaining it than others. “Even if elm could’ve been a little nicer than saying I’d get myself killed just attempting to land…”

“She is rather blunt, isn’t she?” Ironwood chuckled, “I apologize for any offense.”

“As I implied, she wasn’t wrong. Still…” Oscar trailed off, looking back out the window. The airships were practically out of sight at this point, and he couldn’t tell if the two dots he saw were the ships or particles of dust on the window. “After Haven and everything it took to get here, it feels kind of weird to be left behind now,” he admitted.

His hand brushed against the Lamp as he shifted, and he looked down at its soft blue glow. Right, he wasn’t left behind, he was just trusted with a different task. “Well…I guess left behind isn’t _exactly_ how it feels,” he added as an afterthought.

“They gave you the Relic, I see,” the general agreed.

“Yeah,” Oscar said and brushed his fingers over the glass and metal. He had never really focused on it when he was holding the Lamp before, but as he did so, he felt his fingers buzzing with the magic it emanated. “I doubt I’m going to be leaving the city anytime soon, it’s safer here. No need to needlessly endanger it further,” he added and resisted the urge to grimace as all the times they had done exactly that flashed before his eyes. The way the Lamp landed after the Argus Limited crash, then again after it went down the well at Brunswick Farms, and the absolutely desperation he felt when Clover picked it up and started tossing it back and forth when they were captured in Mantle. “We’ve been rather fortunate in that regard.”

“I can imagine,” Ironwood nodded, “From what I gathered, your journey here was not an easy one by any means.” He barely knew the half of it, and Oscar would’ve laughed at the irony of that thought if it didn’t make his stomach turn. “Luckily, when we have the full power of the Winter Maiden back, we can discuss locking the Lamp away again.”

Oscar paused, looking between Ironwood and the Relic on his belt, “That _is_ your plan for it then?” That was what he had been saying to do with the Lamp all along. It was the safest bet they had in keeping it from Salem, which was part of the reason he was surprised when the general gave it back to them. Hearing now that Ironwood’s plan all along was still to lock it away despite returning it for the time being was a bit of a shock, but it made sense. It also was an opportunity, an opening to learn more about Ironwood and his thought process.

“In the end, I thought that was everyone’s plan,” Ironwood said, cocking an eyebrow in question. Oscar resisted the urge to squirm as the general pinned him with his blue eyes. He only relaxed when Ironwood’s gaze softened. “That is why you brought the Lamp to Atlas, correct?” he asked finally after several moments of silence.

“Well…yes,” Oscar nodded. They couldn’t keep it at Haven with the both the academy and the vault compromised and the Spring Maiden missing, and they certainly couldn’t go back to Beacon. He didn’t know why Oz chose Atlas over Vacuo at first, but given the military presence in the kingdom and Ironwood’s… _caution_ , he began to understand. It wasn’t what anyone wanted to see for the kingdom or its people, he was convinced this wasn’t the response Oz would’ve wanted to see, but it _could_ be used well to protect an ancient, magical Relic.

“Make no mistake, I do not doubt it is in the best hands currently possible to hold onto it,” he added and gave a smile. It was genuine, and though perhaps the general misunderstood his hesitancy, Oscar appreciated it. Ironwood _did_ trust them and he _did_ believe in them, and that somehow made everything that much harder. “You all did everything you could to bring the Lamp to safety, I recognize your efforts for what they are and I trust you all can keep it safe until we have the capability to open the vault again.”

“The current Maiden can’t…do that?” Oscar asked carefully. It wasn’t that much of a question, he could assume the answer. _She’s no spring chicken._

“You heard what Qrow said,” Ironwood echoed his thoughts, “Asking her to perform her duties to an unnecessary degree is difficult…let alone cruel, in some regards.”

Oscar looked at the man looking back at him and he noted once again just how tired the general looked. There was a sad sort of sympathy on his face too though, and for a second Oscar wondered if Ironwood was _close_ to the Winter Maiden, or if he simply recognized the sacrifices and duties this woman had performed over the years and felt bad for her current state. Neither option was great, and he felt another twinge of sympathy towards the man. It was not an easy position to be in regardless of the answer, and it was just more proof that Ironwood was not as bad as his actions might otherwise imply. He was simply staring down too many decisions that no one would want to face.

“You are prepared to lose her soon then?” Oscar asked, voicing the implication that rested heavy in the air between them.

“I am. _We_ are,” Ironwood nodded and finally looked at him. _We_. He had already selected the next Maiden, and Oscar could take an easy guess at who it was. All too fitting really, given her name, it was nothing short of kismet. _Planned_ kismet, perhaps, but a funny sort of fate nonetheless. “When the transfer is completed, we can make plans to secure the Lamp for good.”

The plan for them to hold the Lamp was temporary after all. “That sounds like a good plan,” Oscar agreed for lack of anything else to say. It _was_ a good plan. It was a good thing to get the Lamp secure, it was their whole reason for coming to Atlas. Getting it into the vault was what he wanted anyways, and Oscar supposed it was implied in their initial conversation about it. So he wasn’t sure why he felt a little uneasy about the fact this was never outright stated. It wasn’t like any of them would disagree.

Granted, what right did he have to judge on hiding bits of the truth?

Ironwood blew out a breath neither of them realized he had been holding. “I am glad you agree,” he said. Oscar didn’t miss the way he said it either, like Ironwood was putting too much weight on his opinion. “Ozpin always told us keeping the Relics protected should be a top priority.”

“I don’t think you’ll find any disagreement from us, sir,” Oscar said. If anything, it was the one thing they could all easily agree on. He had to wonder though if Ironwood knew what would happen if Salem got all four Relics, if Oz had told him or _anyone_ that combining the Relics would call upon the Brothers to return and cast judgment on all of Remnant, or if the general simply knew that kind of power could not fall into wrong hands. He supposed it didn’t matter at the moment, both were viable reasons to want to avoid letting Salem lay a hand on any Relic.

“Again, I am glad to hear it,” Ironwood nodded, “We may not have agreed on everything, but I understood the importance of that. With Ozpin gone, it is the very least I can do to protect the Relics we were tasked with overseeing.”

At the mention of Oz’s disappearance, Oscar deflated some, receding inward as that nervousness and guilt bit at the edges of his mind. “Yeah…” he trailed off, unsure of what to say. Ozpin wasn’t exactly a topic he had wanted to get on, especially with Ironwood, and he hoped that maybe by not acknowledging it much they would move on. “All we’re all trying to do is our best to avoid Salem now,” he said, feeling like tacking on some standard saying would help steer the conversation away from its current topic.

“Indeed,” Ironwood mused and looked over him again. Oscar _felt_ more than saw the general’s gaze and really wished he didn’t. It was speculative and curious and all too familiar. It had hints of how Ironwood had looked at him the night they first got to Atlas, when he first learned Oscar was Oz’s next incarnation. “You two weren’t together for very long, were you?” he asked finally.

His next exhale came out a little sharper than he intended, but it was better than the groan that threatened to spill out of his mouth. There was no avoiding this either, then. “No sir,” Oscar answered, “A couple months at most.” He had a sinking suspicion of where this was going, and it was somehow worse than just rehashing the fact that Oz was gone for a while. He was growing so tired of having to defend his own identity.

“Then the concept of similar souls is rather striking,” Ironwood continued. His face was still softer, proud even, but Oscar felt no comfort at the words the man was speaking. Not that that was necessarily the general’s fault per se, Oscar just wished he could avoid the inevitable. “You remind me of him in some ways. Your gait, the cadence of your voice and the words you use to answer. They are all undoubtedly yours, unmistakable for a boy your age, and yet…” he trailed off, eyes turning thoughtful as he considered his words, “They are reminiscent of the man you once were.”

Ironwood thought he was paying a compliment. The sentiment was there, Oscar acknowledged it and _wished_ he could take it as a compliment, but the truth was it took everything in him not to visibly recoil at the thought. _He_ was not Ozpin, he had never _been_ Ozpin. He was Oscar Pine, and there was somehow both no man who came before him and a lineage of men responsible for the safety of the world. “Perhaps Oz rubbed off on me more than I thought while he was here,” he gave a half-hearted reply. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have _again_ …but he couldn’t bring himself to honestly thank the general and move on either. “Shame the fighting abilities didn’t take more,” he added as a joke. Anything that might steer them away from this topic.

“I saw some recordings from the street videos of what you did in Mantle,” Ironwood remarked, “I think there is more there than you may believe as well.”

“I wasn’t _completely_ inexperienced before all of this started,” Oscar said, disregarding his own indignation at the thought. He didn’t know why it mattered so suddenly that some of what he had done had been his own in the eyes of Ironwood. What decisions really _had_ been his own he couldn’t share right now anyways. “I grew up on a farm in Mistral well outside of the city. I never went to a Huntsmen academy, but I knew how to handle a Grimm or two when I encountered them,” he added, keeping his voice more even.

Still, he couldn’t deny learning to project his Aura and Oz’s muscle memory significantly _helped_ his skill.

“I apologize, I am not trying to downplay any of your achievements or hard work,” Ironwood said, holding up a hand as a sign of peace. Oscar sighed, maybe he came off a little stronger than intended. It wasn’t Ironwood’s fault he was hitting all of the wrong buttons. “Perhaps you are not mission ready yet, but you are still well within the upper capabilities common in your age range. I am sure that is as much Oz’s guidance as it is your own efforts, especially since he has been gone.”

“I…thank you,” Oscar said, unsure of what else to say, “And…I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound so defensive it’s just difficult. It has _been_ difficult since this has happened. Everything is weird and it’s hard to separate.”

“I can imagine it was very startling to have happen,” Ironwood nodded and laughed a little, “It was crazy enough when Oz told me about Salem and the Relics. Suddenly having him in your head must have been a completely different scare in its own right.”

“Startling is one way to put it,” Oscar agreed, a small laugh bubbling in his throat. Startling was way too modest to even begin describing how it felt.

The worst of it was the night of the Fall. He barely slept that night, and that was well before he had heard the news. Every time he closed his eyes it was a new, different bad dream. Fire, smoke, battles, Grimm after Grimm, real life magic that he _knew_ only existed in fairytales but apparently his imagination was running wild that night. He only later figured out those images weren’t dreams at all, but he never got the gall to ask Oz about them in full.

Some of them he didn’t want to know.

Nothing had been as bad as the night of the Fall, but it never fully went away either. Every so often he would have a flash of a memory that he didn’t think was his but he wasn’t quite sure because it was never a full memory. It was just the sense that he had seen or done something before, or that he should really be out doing something else besides working on the farm. Those were easy enough to attribute to his own desires to venture out into the world and do something more. The images of Beacon he had he figured came from seeing and hearing the news and being told too many stories about it.

He could never quite place the thoughts that didn’t quite feel like his though. They were…maybe, but they weren’t. Oscar would likely never be able to properly explain, but sometimes a thought would strike him to do or say something that was distinctly not like him, but was. They always made perfect sense after the fact, but he had never considered them before that moment, and they shouldn’t have been as well-considered and finite as they were when they appeared in his mind. It took some time to accept those thoughts actually _hadn’t_ solely been his, but had come from thousands of years of similarity.

In hindsight, the one thing that made the most sense from those days was his odd, increasingly large craving for hot chocolate.

“I never tried to think too much on it when it first happened. That was easy, Ozpin didn’t speak to me for the first couple of weeks,” Oscar admitted, though he wasn’t quite sure why. No one had ever really asked about the night Oz reincarnated before, so he had never felt the need to verbalize what happened. Ironwood hadn’t directly asked either, but he felt a pull to tell the man. Maybe it was because he felt the need to compensate for all of the things he _couldn’t_ say to Ironwood. Maybe it was simply because the general seemed to be willing to lend an ear, if nothing else.

Ironwood wasn’t a bad man, Oscar kept seeing proof of that time and time again.

“That sounds like Ozpin,” Ironwood agreed. Something in his tone sounded fond, but with an underlying hint of frustration. Oscar knew that feeling all too well. “If I may then, what caused you to go ahead?”

Oscar shrugged, “Well…Oz finally started talking to me. I didn’t want to believe any of it at first, I thought I was going crazy. But when the voice in your head just doesn’t stop, and eventually makes you imagine the office of Haven’s headmaster, whom you’ve never met let alone been in the man’s office, and you do so with perfect clarity…it begins to get a little harder to deny.”

That was the tipping point. He had wanted to believe his recollection of Lionheart’s office at Haven was just something he picked up from a book, but he knew in his heart it wasn’t. The memory of it felt too personal, too _real_ to just be from pictures on a page. He had memories of standing in that office, of offering Leo that tea set and using it. Even his wildest imaginations wouldn’t be able to come up with _that_ level of detail from some pictures on a page.

“After that it was…easier.” Not easy, but easier. “Oz talked about having the chance to do the right thing. For better or for worse, I couldn’t deny it _felt_ like going to Haven was the right thing to do,” Oscar shrugged, “That was something I always wanted to do…the right thing, I mean. I always knew I wanted to make a larger impact on the world than just being a simple farmhand all my life. I wanted _more_ , but—”

It had been terrifying coming to terms with the fact that he knew going to Haven Academy was the “right” thing. It was weird and scary and new living with a voice inside his head he couldn’t deny the reality of. But the worst part about it all was the undeniable fact that it felt _right_. The fact that just because he was scared and weirded out by everything that was going on, he _wasn’t_ scared of his decision or how easily he came to accept it. It took a couple weeks, but that was hardly enough time for most people to adjust to the reincarnated mind of the former headmaster of Beacon Academy living in their head and telling them to go on a perilous quest to a personally unknown place for relative unspecified reasons.

Okay well, when he thought about it like that, maybe Oscar _was_ a little crazy.

“—But all of _this_ wasn’t what I had in mind, exactly,” he finished, looking down at his hands, then at the Lamp and his cane. He wouldn’t deny this wasn’t exactly what he _wanted_ , but after everything that had happened, he couldn’t deny it was the right thing to do. Everyone had to make do with what they got in life, he was no different. His circumstances were just a little more extreme.

“That probably makes me sound insane over how easy it was to get me to go to Haven,” Oscar acknowledged, letting out a nervous chuckle. He wouldn’t deny that, either. “But I can’t really say anything else got me out there. It just felt right, and it felt like it was the right thing to do at the moment.”

“I would hardly call that insane,” Ironwood said, his tone as patient as he appeared while listening, “Eccentric maybe, but not insane. And eccentric certainly wasn’t the worst thing Ozpin had ever been called—” Oscar almost snorted. He could see that. “—But following your instinct and wanting to do right by the world, that is hardly insane, Oscar. It is honestly what I would expect from you.”

“Because I’m Oz’s vessel?” he asked wearily. Of course it was what Ironwood would expect, it was what he would expect Oz to do, and Oscar still couldn’t forget the way the general looked at him that night. As a hope, as a savior, as _Oz_.

“Because I know the company you keep,” Ironwood corrected, and Oscar felt a little it lighter, “I saw what RWBY and JNR did at Beacon firsthand. I know what kind of kids they are, and I doubt you would remain with them if you were any different. Actually, I doubt they would let you stay around if you were any different,” he chuckled.

“Oh,” Oscar breathed. That was clearly not the answer he was expecting, but that was a good thing. He didn’t want to continue hearing the diatribe about how he was like Oz. If nothing else, at the very least Ironwood just heard his struggle about coming to accept who and what he was and decided to acknowledge Oscar as his own person with his own relationships outside of Ozpin. “Thank you, sir.”

If nothing else, Ironwood was not a bad man.

“Of course, Oscar. Now, about—” Ironwood was cut off from whatever he was about to say by a series of beeps coming from his Scroll. Oscar watched as he pulled it out and read the messages he was just sent, his face morphing from mild annoyance to tired resignation. “Now it seems like I have to take my leave,” he grumbled and pocked his Scroll. “I’m sorry, it appears I have to cut this short. I have another emergency board meeting to get to,” the general said and added under his breath, “ _Again_.”

Oscar nodded in understanding and smiled a little, “You’re a busy man, there’s no need to apologize. You’re doing the best you can.”

“Thank you,” Ironwood said, seemingly a little surprised at the encouragement he offered, “Oscar, when I next have a few moments, I’d like to discuss with you some ides I mentioned the other night about potentially getting Ozpin back out, and maybe getting you some more combat training as well, if that is alright with you.”

Oscar still didn’t know how he felt about that, especially considering he knew nothing Ironwood suggested would likely work. He didn’t know how exactly he felt about the idea they _needed_ to get Ozpin back out either, but he supposed he should at least accept the general was trying. “I’d like that, sir,” he agreed. At the very least, he _did_ want more combat training.

“Then, until next time,” Ironwood nodded and turned on his heel. He only got a few paces down the hall before stopping and looking back, “Oh, and Oscar? Outside of professional settings, my friends call me James.”

Oscar smiled and nodded, understanding his implication. “Alright, then, thank you, James.”

Ironwood smiled in response and turned back around, heading off towards his emergency board meeting. Oscar watched his retreating figure and with each step the general took away from him, he felt more and more of his prior thoughts and anxieties returning to him. When Ironwood finally rounded a corner and left his sight, he sighed and turned back to glance out the window behind him again.

He wasn’t sure exactly how helpful that conversation was. Honestly, Oscar felt like he had done more talking than Ironwood had. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it didn’t really give him too much of an insight on where Ironwood’s thoughts and plans regarding the kingdom, Salem, Oz and…everything else. At least he got some more information regarding the plan for the Relic, though he wasn’t sure how he felt about it, and he was able to make some much-needed clarifications between him and Oz that he _hoped_ stuck with the general. And not everything was lost by him talking. It proved that Ironwood was willing to listen, at least.

It solidified Ironwood wasn’t a bad man.

Oscar sighed and gave one last, long glance out the window before starting his way back down the hall again. It was good to know that Ironwood was willing to listen. He wanted to believe it was a good sign that he still felt the need to tell Ironwood the truth. It was good nothing the general had done thus far had dissuaded him. But he still didn’t know how they were going to tell him. He still didn’t have any inkling towards how Ironwood might react, and he still didn’t have any ideas about how they might be able to limit some of the risks of his reaction. He was still _exactly_ where he started the day, and he still had a long time to go before the day was done. It was going to feel like _forever_ before everyone else got back.

…Maybe he’d have to apologize for wearing ruts in the floor after all.


End file.
